Question

Nathan and Takashi each evaluated the expression 16 - 5 * 2 + 4 . Nathan believes the solution is 10. Takashi disagrees and says the answer is 26.

A. who is correct? what operation did he perform first?
B. what operation was done first by the student who was incorrect

Answer 1

A. Nathan is correct answering 10. The first option performed is 5*2. B. Takashi's operation that was done first was 16-5 which is incorrect. Use PEMDAS for the expression, which is: P for parentheses, E is for exponents, M is for multiplication, D is for division, A is to add, and S is for subtraction.

Answer 2

Nathan is correct. Nathan followed the order of operations by first doing 5*2 to get 10. Then he did everything else in order after multiplying those two numbers: 16-10+4=10. This is how he got 10.

Takashi is incorrect because he did everything from left to right, without following the rules of algebra. He did 16-5*2+4 all at once which lead the problem to be wrong. For that answer he got 26. He is wrong.