How do you simplify $13 - 5 + 1$ using PEMDAS?

Question

1847 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2018-03-31T06:58:33

$9$

The problem arises in identifying the adds and the subtracts!

The question does NOT mean $13-(5+1)$ , where the addition is seen as $5+1$

Remember that a sign belongs to the number on the right.

What we actually have is

$(+13) +(-5) +(+1)$

I prefer to have students rearranging the terms first, with the ADDS at the beginning and the SUBTRACTS at the end.

$13+1-5 = 9$

Or just work from left to right.

$color(blue)(13-5)+1$

$=color(blue)(8)+1$

$=9$

How do you simplify 13 - 5 + 1 13 - 5 + 1 using PEMDAS?