PEMDAS Archives - Math and Multimedia

PEMDAS and the Common Errors in the Order of Operations

August 26, 2012 GB High School Mathematics

PEMDAS is the acronym for the order of operations. P stands for parentheses, E for exponent, and MDAS for Mulitplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction respectively.

PEMDAS

This means we want to evaluate a numerical expression such as

$5(6 + 3)^2 - 8$

we have to ‘operate’ to the order of PEMDAS. The operation is as follows. » Read more

3 comments MDAS common errors, MDAS misconceptions, order of operations, PEMDAS, PEMDAS common errors, PEMDAS misconceptions

Order of Operations: 360 or 354?

July 4, 2011 GB High School Algebra, High School Mathematics

Last Saturday, I received Facebook message from a student asking help to simplify $[5(4)^3 + 6(11-4)] - 36 / 9 (2)$ . He got $354$ but his teacher’s answer was $360$ .

Although the problem above seems simple, a lot of students get confused by it, and in this case, even the teacher too. The expression above simplifies to » Read more

4 comments order of operation misconception, order of operations definition, order of operations lesson, order of operations problems, PEMDAS