How do you evaluate 37- ( 6\times 3) + 5\div 2?

2 Answers
Oct 29, 2017

You need to follow the order of operations.

Explanation:

The order of operations dictates the way in which an expression must be solved. It looks like this.

  1. P arentheses
  2. E xponents
  3. M ultiplication
  4. D ivision
  5. A ddition
  6. S ubtraction

You may want to remember it as PEMDAS. It is important to note that for multiplication/division and addition/subtraction, you will complete whichever comes first.

P is first, so we will need to solve what is in the parentheses.

(6*3)=18
37-18+5 -: 2

E is next, but there are no exponents, so we move on.
MD comes after, but there is no multiplication, so we do the division.

5-:2=2.5
37-18+2.5

AS is the last step. The subtraction comes before the addition, so we will do that first.

37-18=19
19+2.5

Then we do the addition, finishing the problem.

19+2.5=21.5

We can see that the order of operations helped us get the answer of 21.5.

Oct 29, 2017

21 1/2

Explanation:

Identify the individual terms in the expression.

Within each term you do the operations in the order:

  • brackets
  • powers and roots
  • divide and multiply

Once each term has been simplified to a single number, the addition and subtraction is done in the last step.

" "color(green)(37)color(red)(-6xx3)" "color(blue)(+5div2)" "larr there are 3 terms

=color(green)(37)" "color(red)(-18)" "color(blue)(+2 1/2)

=" "19" "color(blue)(+" "2 1/2)

= 21 1/2