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A fake Facebook event disguised as a math problem has been one of its top posts for 6 months
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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The issue normally with these "trick" questions is the ambiguous nature of that division sign (not so much a problem here) or people not knowing to just go left to right when all operators are of the same priority. A common mistake is to think division is prioritised above multiplication, when it actually has the same priority. Someone should have included some parenthesis in PEDMAS aka. PE(DM)(AS) ๐
The same priority operations can be done in any order without affecting the result, that's why they can be same priority and don't need an explicit order.
6 ร 4 รท 2 ร 3 รท 9 evaluates the same regardless of order. Can you provide a counter example?
Another person already replied using your equation, but I felt the need to reply with a simpler one as well that shows it:
9-1+3=?
Subtraction first:
8+3=11
Addition first:
9-4=5
Nope. Addition first is 9+3-1=12-1=11. You did 9-(1+3), incorrectly adding brackets and changing the answer (thus a wrong answer)