Question

Why is the order of operations important?

Answer 1

PEMDAS is one of the most important rules in math. If you don't follow it, your answers can be WAYYY off. Ex: 3 + 2 x 4 According to PEMDAS, 2 x 4 = 8, then + 3 = 11. But if you go against the rule, the answer would be 3 + 2 = 5, then x 4 = 20, which is the complete wrong answer.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

The order of operations gives us instructions on how to simplify expressions that contain more than one operation.

Let's look at an example.

8 + 2 · 3

The first thing you need to know about the order of operations is that multiplication and division always come before addition and subtraction.

So in this problem, we're going to multiply before we add.

Since 2 · 3 is 6, our next step will read 8 + 6 and 8 + 6 simplifies to 14.

I have also shown this problem in the image attached.