Order of Operations
In mathematics, operations are things like add, subtract, multiply, divide, brackets and powers. There are rules about the order in which these operations are done. Get the order wrong, and you will get the answer wrong!
What should we do first?
1 Brackets (deal with what is inside the brackets first)
2 Orders (things like powers and square roots)
3 Multiply and Divide (left to right)
4 Add and Subtract (left to right)
How can we remember the correct order?
Let's work through our example question:
The answer is 1. Can you follow what we did? First we solved the brackets. There were no orders or division so we didn't have to worry about them. Then we solved the multiplication, addition and finally the subtraction.
