SOLUTION: this question is about order of operations. i have a book called Painless Algerbra, and it has different exercises for me to do. well there was a exercise on how to compute the va

Question 26489: this question is about order of operations. i have a book called Painless Algerbra, and it has different exercises for me to do. well there was a exercise on how to compute the value of the expression and i got a different answer than the one the book has. so i wanted to know if i was really wrong. the expression was: 16 - 2 times 4 + 3
this is what i did: 16 - 2 times 4 + 3
16 - 8 + 3
16 - 11
5
my answer was 5 but the books answer was 11
am i worng? and if i am why?
Answer by queenofit(120) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
This equation is all about the order of operations. In any equation you must first do the multiplication, then division, then addition, then subtraction. My Dear Aunt SAlly, is how some remember, ok....
Lets do it together and you will see how this will work out to the answer in the book. However, you are right to question the correctness of the answers in the textbooks. Some are not correct. However, I did get 11 when I did this one. So lets start with MY-multiplication
16-2*4+3 you will multiply the -2 times the 4 first and have
16-8+3 you have no Dear-division, so we Aunt-Add next
16+(-8+3)sometimes it helps to put it in ( )you must include the sign.
16-5 the result of -8+3 is -5
=11
Do you understand now? I hope this helped.