A factorial is the product of an integer and all the positive integers below it. To solve a fraction featuring factorials, expand the factorials and cancel out like numbers:

\( \frac{3!}{5!} \)
\( \frac{3 \times 2 \times 1}{5 \times 4 \times 3 \times 2 \times 1} \)
\( \frac{1}{5 \times 4} \)
\( \frac{1}{20} \)

A number with an exponent (b^e) consists of a base (b) raised to a power (e). The exponent indicates the number of times that the base is multiplied by itself. A base with an exponent of 1 equals the base (b¹ = b) and a base with an exponent of 0 equals 1 ( (b⁰ = 1).

First, solve for \( \left|a + 1\right| \):

\( \left|a + 1\right| \) - 6 = -9
\( \left|a + 1\right| \) = -9 + 6
\( \left|a + 1\right| \) = -3

The value inside the absolute value brackets can be either positive or negative so (a + 1) must equal - 3 or --3 for \( \left|a + 1\right| \) to equal -3:

So, a = 2 or a = -4.

To add these distances, they must share the same unit so first you need to first convert the swim distance from meters (m) to kilometers (km) before adding it to the bike and run distances which are already in km. To convert 300 meters to kilometers, divide the distance by 1000 to get 0.3km then add the remaining distances:

total distance = swim + bike + run
total distance = 0.3km + 50.8km + 17.8km
total distance = 68.9km

To simplify this fraction, first find the greatest common factor between them. The factors of 28 are [1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 28] and the factors of 56 are [1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 14, 28, 56]. They share 6 factors [1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 28] making 28 their greatest common factor (GCF).

Next, divide both numerator and denominator by the GCF:

\( \frac{28}{56} \) = \( \frac{\frac{28}{28}}{\frac{56}{28}} \) = \( \frac{1}{2} \)