PEMDASLR

My favorite thing to do in math is order of operations. They are fun little math problems that feel like a hunt. As a kid it made me feel really smart to be able to solve problems that once looked incredibly difficult. When I was in second grade, I feared equations that were long and looked difficult. My little mind couldn’t comprehend how easy it actually was.  

 Everyone knows the famous acronym PEMDAS. I was taught a little differently. Instead of PEMDAS it was PEMDASLR. Not many people were taught this way, which is a bummer. The acronym stands for please excuse my dear aunt Sally’s loud radio. Adding the LR to the end of it made it very helpful for me to understand that when solving multistep math equations, you always go from left to right. Not many people are taught to go left to right, which is a crucial key to solving these kinds of problems. The P in PEMDASLR stand for parenthesis. Anything that is enclosed within two brackets must be done first. Whatever is inside the brackets should be treated as its own equation. That means you would follow the rules of PEMDASLR. The E in PEMDASLR stands for exponents. Exponents are the little number to the top right of the base number that will multiply the base number by itself how ever many times the exponent says to. The MD in PEMDASLR stands for multiplication and division. The AS in PEMDASLR stands for addition and subtraction. Lastly, the LR in PEMDASLR stands for left to right. When they say left to right, they mean that you need to do the multiplication and division left to right than move onto addition and subtraction left to right. For example, if I had 5*4+10/2-1=.  I would need to do multiplication and division from left to right first. So, I would do five times four first which would make my equation now look like, 20+10/2-1=. Next, I would do ten divided by two since it’s the next step. My new equation would look like 20+5-1. Next you would just simply go across adding and subtracting since the equation was in its simplest form. My answer would be twenty-four. A lot of times people get tripped up on doing the multiplication first then moving onto division, but that is not the case. It’s whatever comes first and in order. So, the equation could start with a division. The division and multiplication in orders of operations are interchangeable. The same could be said for subtraction and addition. You solve whatever comes in the equation first. 

 As you move up in the math the difficulty of orders of operations moves up as well. Just like everything in life, things will gradually get harder and harder. You would be thrown in square roots, absolute values, and many more. The key is to remain calm under the pressure. Just do what you know. Don’t overthink anything.  As long as you follow PEMDASLR you will succeed.