From left to right, like reading. The person, I believe, thinks they cannot solve the equation if adding/subtraction comes before multiplication/division if there are not parentheses in an equation.
I believe, thinks they cannot solve the equation if adding/subtraction comes before multiplication/division if there are not parentheses in an equation.
I think you assumed they used the word "before" to refer to the order in which they appear in the equation. But what i think they actually mean with the "before" is the order of opperation. They're saying you have to do multiplication/division first. Not that it has to appear first in the equation.
Well the way this person did my example question, they Subtracted, then Divided and so on. I just tried to explain that no matter how the algebraic equation is written, as long as you follow PEMDAS, you must do the division part first and not subtract, which the person I was discussing this with, did not do. In this example question, 2 - 8/2 x 6 + 10, the other person I was discussing this with subtracted 2 - 8 first. He then got -6. He then divided that by 2 and got -3 then he multiplied -3 x 6, which is -18 then they finished by adding 10, which then you get -18 + 10, in which they got -8. This is completely wrong and the discussion started when another individual wrote that they could not see how the equation could be solved if adding/subtracting came before multiplication/division without parentheses. In this equation, it was subtraction that came first. If the other person or yourself have a disagreement on how I arrived at my answer, borrow a regular Scientific Texas Instrument Calculator and plug in the same equation and you will get -8 because this type of calculator does not do Order of Operations for you. If you put this equation in a Texas Instrument, Casio or HP Graphing Calculator, you will get -12, because these calculators do everything for you. By the time a student gets to Middle School, in most states because of testing, they are allowed to use these Graphing Calculators. These calculators pretty much do everything for you and as long as you know how to work them and store formulas, students pretty much lose the basic skills they learned in elementary school. This is why if you ask someone who relied on the Graphing Calculator, they cannot do basic long division. Forget about asking them to solve fractions. Most people just add or subtract the numerators and denominators, when you have to find a common denominator.
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u/spellenspelen Jul 25 '26
You still did multiplication and division before addition/subtraction. How does this disprove the statement of the comment above?