12 divided by 3 times 4 = ? (is the answer 16 or 1?)

What is 12 ÷ 3 x 4 = ? Is the answer 16, 8, or 1? Too many students and even adults are still making mistakes with PEMDAS. PEMDAS is an acronym for "parenthesis, exponent, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction" which is how most students learn the order of operations. I would like to show you the "order of operation pyramid" to understand what we need to do first when we do math computations.

0:00 Many students are still using PEMDAS wrong for 12/3*4
2:35 The order-of-operation pyramid

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#math #algebra #mathbasics

[monsterbash]

I learned PEMDAS but I remember them telling me that multiplication and division are actually on the same step, as well as addition and subtraction being on the same step. I'm always surprised how many people forget about that part of it.

[KomradeMikhail]

My third grade teacher wrote it on the chalkboard as PE[MD][AS].
Never had any issues after that...

[enoraskye]

I get the feeling you teach math for a living. You explain the concepts extremely well. It's all explained clearly and simply. If you don't teach math, there is a classroom of frustrated students that really need you.

[Roman_x]

This is exactly what was tripping me of in high school. And my teachers were actually convinced that that multiplication is before division. Then in the complex equation they would just use answers to grade us but wouldn't go through calculations themselves.

[Djiehh]

In German school, we learnt "Punkt vor Strich" (dot before line) because we generally use ":" as the symbol for division and "•" for multiplication, so we were taught that we have to resolve any parentheses first, any exponents second, then we prioritise the "dots" over the "lines" while generally going left to right.

[benpolzkill]

Thanks! This is by far the best explanation I've ever experienced on the order of basic math calculations. Not just on YouTube, but also in high school & college. I am so impressed that I gave monetary thanks. Something I've never done before. I am going to recommend your channel to my grandchildren and all the students I know, inluding us old timers who still like to dabble in mathematics. I truly believe we will all benefit from your wonderful teaching skills.

[ashwalkerson]

That pyramid makes a lot of sense. My teacher explained "PEMDAS" could also be "PEDMAS" depending on what came first in the equation (left to right). Same for addition/subtraction. But the triangle or pyramid seems simpler to explain to a student. Nice!

[seraphilight]

Better teacher than 90% of the ones I had through public education in America.

[Ninja]

Where i live we never use all those acronyms. We are just directly taught the hierachy triangle that u showed so there is no confusion.

[Elizabeth-qelk]

You have a gift. If only I had a teacher like you growing up it would have made a huge difference that I may even enjoyed mathematics.

[Kaggii]

Yep, 10 years later I'm still getting simple math questions wrong, you always need a constant in your life

[DegenerateHour]

Really makes me appreciate whichever teacher taught me this. It's somehow drilled in my head that Multiplication/Division and Addition/Subtraction are in their same respective hierarchies.

[asvarien]

I was taught BODMAS at school. Brackets, ordinals, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction. It's never let me down and got me the right answers to the questions. Though I can see how it could fail with the right equations.

[Maungateitei]

Reverse Polish notation is much shorter, easier to work with, 2:43 no confusion possible.
Eg: 12 3 / 4 x
=16
It is the standard in the forth computer language.
VERY efficient.

[ArtificialDjDAGX]

Isn't it written more correctly as
Parenthesis
Exponent
Multiplication/Division
Addition/Subtraction
?
Which, IMO makes it super clear that you should just read is as a normal left to right sequence of operations in this scenario.

[vitowidjojo]

I think school should teach the logic and the basics step by step instead using acronyms.it's easier to remember by acronym, but basics and reasons behind acronym shouldn't be forgotten.

[robcav]

1:28 weird we were always taught BEDMAS not PEMDAS (b= brackets)

[edwardp]

My school really did right by me - I remember my teacher specifically saying that Mult/Div were technically equally, and so was add/sub, so to always go from left to right for the tiebreak.

[nctrailcam]

This (along with a background programming in LISP) is the reason I always put parenthesis anywhere there might be confusion.

[Cybernatural]

I remember being taught BEDMAS, brackets; exponents; division; multiplication; addition; subtraction.

It's funny how there are different acronyms.