How to factor out the coefficient of the variable : 1/2m + 1/2 = ? ?

Pls! does anybody know a shortcut for answering these types of questions in the future?

The hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters. how many permutations are posible for each number of letters?

Subscriptions to a popular fashion magazine have gone down by a consistent percentage each year and can be modeled by the function y = 42,000(0.96)t. what does the value 42,000 represent in the function?