Question

Ivan evaluated the expression 8 + 12 = 2 x 3 and got 10. What mistake did he make?

Answer 1

(PEMDAS)

2x3 = 6.

12 divided by 6 = 2

8+2= 10.

This above is what Ivan did.

2x3 = 6

equation so far: 8+12 = 6

8+12 = 20

equation after problem solved: 20 = 6

20 is not equal to 6, so therefore, Ivan made the mistake of interpreting the = sign as a division sign.

Answer 2

The mistake Ivan made is that he did not follow the order of operations (PEMDAS) when evaluating the expression.

The correct order of operations is:

Parentheses

Exponents

Multiplication and Division (performed left to right)

Addition and Subtraction (performed left to right)

In this expression, there are no parentheses or exponents, so we move directly to multiplication and division.

The expression 2 x 3 should be evaluated first, which gives us 6.

So the expression becomes:

8 + 12 = 6

Adding 8 and 12, we get:

20 = 6

This is clearly not true, and we can see that Ivan made the mistake of not performing the multiplication before adding 8 and 12, which led to an incorrect answer of 10.