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Learning the Order of Operations

Math can be extremely difficult. A lot of people find it hard to understand mathematical concepts. Mathematicians have been striving for centuries to make math problems easier to understand for everyone and they’ve succeeded in many ways. Some problems may look too hard to solve for the average person, but there is a sort of guide that mathematicians use to help make solving problems easier. It’s known as the Order of Operations. It sounds scary and complicated but the idea behind it is quite simple. If you do the problem in a certain order, you will always get the right answer. If you do a problem out of order, you will always get a wrong answer. That’s where the helpful acronym PEMDAS comes from.

PEMDAS stands for: Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction. When you approach any mathematical problem in this order, you will get the right answer. Doing anything out of order will result in a wrong answer.

By tackling the problem in this order, you will be able to get to the right answer. Still, there are many questions. How do you remember the correct order? The easiest way is to break down the acronym into a phrase that’s easy to remember. Kind of like how the directions North, South, East and West are easier to remember as Never Eat Soggy Waffles? Well you can remember PEMDAS by doing the same thing.

The most common one is: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. It’s funny and easy to remember so it’s easier to remember what the correct order is. However, there are others as well. Peanuts Ended My Donut Addiction Saturday, Pink Elephants Make Dandy Apple Sauce, People Eat More Donuts After School, Purple Elephants Marching Down The Street, and more. You can pretty much make up any phrase that you want as long as you can remember it!

Here’s an example:

3 x (5+8) - 2² / 4-3

Looking at that problem can make people nervous because it appears rather complicated. But all you have to do is remember PEMDAS. First, you do the operation with parenthesis: 5+8. That equals 13. Then the problem becomes:

3 x (13) - 2² / 4-3

Next, you do the exponent: 2² equals 4, which turn the problem into the following:

3 x (13) - 4 / 4-3

Then, the multiplication and division: 3 x (13) and 4/4. Finally, it becomes

39 – 1 + 3

It’s also important to remember to do the addition and subtraction from left to right: 39 – 1 +3 = 41.

The answer is 41! Doing the problem in that order is the only way to get a correct answer – 90% of the time. If you do it another way, you’ll end up with an incorrect answer before you even realize it.

For more information about the Order of Operations, see these sites:

Correct Order of Operations

Elementary Math: Learning the Order of Operations

PEMDAS

Order of Operations

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