What's the answer to this very basic maths problem?

Diddums x

Diddums x

Diddums x

Caporegime
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Right so I'm stumped here. I suspect it's a fault at my uni which is why I'm being told my answer is wrong, but as I'm now doubting myself, I turn to you guys to help me solve a problem that a 10 year old could probably do :p

7+16÷(-7-1)-16=


Go on, show me your workings!


(pls come up with the same as I did, I don't want to be told I can be outmathsed by a snotnose :p)
 
-11 is what I got too, but the site keeps telling me it's wrong but won't explain why (it's only a dummy test anyway).

I've just checked the module forum and this is apparently a known issue :confused:


Ah well, I'll leave this here so you guys can laugh at me, at least until my birtdoy comes :D
 
7+16÷(-7-1)-16=
7+16÷-8-16=
7-2-16 =
-11

2em3fye.png
 
Glaucus said:
7+16÷(-7-1)-16=
7+16÷-8-16=
7-2-16 =
11

2em3fye.png
Click to expand...

This always used to confuse me as a kid. We had one teacher who taught us BEDMAS and then we had a different once teaching us BODMAS which are the same thing, the E just stands for exponents. Dumbass teachers.
 
Diddums said:
This always used to confuse me as a kid. We had one teacher who taught us BEDMAS and then we had a different once teaching us BODMAS which are the same thing, the E just stands for exponents. Dumbass teachers.
Click to expand...

I've been taught BEDMAS, BoDMAS & PEDMAS amongst other things and honestly it's really annoying having so many variations on it since they all do the same thing! :s
 
Psymonkee said:
I've been taught BEDMAS, BoDMAS & PEDMAS amongst other things and honestly it's really annoying having so many variations on it since they all do the same thing! :s
Click to expand...

I was taught none of them yay - or maybe I wasn't paying attention but a quick flick through my old school books doesn't show anything covering it. For some reason my maths education was about 75% trigonometry.
 
It's hardly confusing. If you are unable to make the connection between BIDMAS/BODMAS etc, then really, you need to start asking yourself some questions :p

Anyway, it's 'order of operation' in my classroom. The kids can call it what they want.
 
we had this thread before and it really brought out some quite angry posters (though it was a more deliberately confusing question that involved multiplication too)

it is really dubious to write something in that way, I wouldn't quite say 'ambiguous' as there is convention for dealing with the ÷ (or 'Obelus') symbol so technically you can follow 'BODMAS' or similar and get the answer -11 as people have pointed out. (There was a big argument in the last thread with someone wanting to dispute this who then got a bit confused at the idea of convention and wanted an argument from 'first principles')

but basically you'd usually avoid using the ÷ symbol and instead use a fraction bar for division which is much less confusing, it is generally only seen in primary school mathematics
 
I'm gonna guess this is one of those questions where there are multiple "correct" answers due to the method changing over the past decades, resulting in some scientific calculators giving different results?

General response is to accept the "newer" result, even if it enrages the older generations :P
 
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