Final answer:
The statement is True. The exponent outside the parentheses applies to every base within the parentheses. An example is (2 * 5)2 which becomes 22 * 52 = 100.
Step-by-step explanation:
If the exponent is outside the parenthesis, then every base inside the parenthesis gets exponentiated. This statement is True. To explain further, when you have an expression such as (a * b)c, the exponent c applies to both a and b that are inside the parenthesis. This is known as the power of a product property, which states that when you raise a product to a power, you raise each factor in the product to that same power. Let's take an example, (2 * 5)2 = 22 * 52 = 4 * 25 = 100. Here, both the bases 2 and 5 inside the parenthesis are squared because the exponent 2 is outside the parenthesis, acting on the whole product inside the parenthesis. An exponent signifies how many times to multiply the base by itself. It does behave differently when you are dealing with negative exponents or when you are multiplying bases with different exponents as illustrated in the example with unequal bases: 32 * 54 remains as is, because the bases are not the same and therefore cannot be simply combined by adding exponents.