Quote:
Originally Posted by BurningSteel
Im confused?? Where did the brackets come from???
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Sorry Steel, I'm not totally sure what you're asking... so this might not answer your question...
Brackets just show you which part of the problem you need to solve first (you always solve the stuff inside brackets before you even look at what's outside the brackets - that's the rule with brackets).
So when I wrote "(4 + 5) x 3" I put those brackets around the "4 + 5" because I wanted to show that that person was solving the "4 + 5" first. Then when I wrote "4 + (5 x 3)" in the second attempt, I put brackets around the "5 x 3" because I wanted to show that that person was solving the "5 x 3" first. So basically, I just put those brackets in there because I thought it would more clearly show the two different ways people might try to solve the question (one person solved the addition first and got the wrong answer, one person solved the multiplication first and got the right answer).
I don't know if that answers your question?
If you're asking why "4 + 5 x 3 = 27" is wrong, but "4 + 5 x 3 = 19" is correct, that's because "4 + 5 x 3 = 27" solved the multiplication and addition in the wrong order. It's kind of hard to explain the "order of operations" on a forum like this, but I just went on YouTube to find a video that maybe explains it better: