You can put this solution on YOUR website! Given:
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1+2-3*4/5
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By the rules governing the order of operations, the first thing you do in this problem
is to read it from left to right and perform the multiplications and divisions as you come
to them.
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The first multiplication or division you come to in going from left to right is -3 times 4
and this results in -12, and that is followed by the division sign so you divide the -12
by 5 next. With these two actions you now have simplified the problem to:
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and the -12/5 is equal to -2.4. So the problem is reduced to:
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Now return to the start of the problem and reading from left to right you do the additions
and subtractions as you come to them. The first one you come to is 1 + 2 and that reduces
the problem to:
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and finally you subtract 2.4 from 3 to get the answer 0.6
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I put it in decimal form so you could see the flow of the problem. It could also have been
done in fraction form starting from the result we got above which is:
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At this point we go back to the left and reading from left to right we do the additions
and subtractions beginning with 1 + 2 = 3 which reduces the problem to:
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But 3 is equivalent to so we can substitute this for 3:
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Notice that both terms have the common denominator of 5 so we can combine them by subtracting
their numerators to get:
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And notice that if you divide 5 into 3 you get 0.6 which is the same answer that we got by
doing the problem in decimal form.
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So the answer to this problem is either or
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Hope this helps you to understand the order of operations for problems that involve
multiplications, divisions, additions, and subtractions.
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