Question

When evaluating a complex expression which of the following rules should be followed?

Evaluate from left to right
Evaluate from right to left
Evaluate using order of operations
Evaluate in any order

Answer 1

Evaluate using order of operations. Always do this first.

once you have distributed probably you will evaluate left to right.

Answer 2

Evaluate from left to right

Evaluate using order of operations

Explanation:

To evaluate any complex expression that contains addition, subtraction , multiply or divide, exponents , parenthesis etc we use order of operation.

Order of operation is PEMDAS

To evaluate , first we simplify the parenthesis part and then exponents

Then do the multiplication and division from left to right.

Finally we do addition and subtraction from left to right

So the rules for evaluating a complex expression is

Evaluate from left to right

Evaluate using order of operations