How's Your Math?

[Andy M.]

I'm impressed! DC members have a much higher percentage of correct answers than what I saw on FB.

The correct answer is 15.

Burger=5, one mug of beer=1, bottle=10.

It's natural to do the math in the order it's presented, left to right. After all, that's how we read things.

However, as BT said, PEMDAS rules. Numbers in Parentheses () are done first, then Exponents are applied. In the absence of these, you do operations in the following order: Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract.

So, first we multiply 10x1 for a total of 10, the add the burger with a value of 5 for an grand total of 15.

Congrats to all who got it right. The rest of you, back to school!

 

[dragnlaw]

So why weren't the parenthesis shown?

I agree with Katie - if it ain't there - do what you see.

I was never taught any PEMDAS, never even heard of them till now, but it only makes sense to do the brackets first, else why would they be bracketed? So not there - don't do it.

did I mention I failed math miserably, they could never understand why I could get so many correct answers but not know how I got there.
We would be scored on a test:
State question... 1 point
show correct procedure... 10 point
show correct answer... 4 point

I would get 1 + 4 and a big Zero! 10... never even close - sometimes I just didn't write anything for the procedure, or I would state... "because it looks right"

 

[Katie H]

I'm impressed! DC members have a much higher percentage of correct answers than what I saw on FB.

The correct answer is 15.

Burger=5, one mug of beer=1, bottle=10.

It's natural to do the math in the order it's presented, left to right. After all, that's how we read things.

However, as BT said, PEMDAS rules. Numbers in Parentheses () are done first, then Exponents are applied. In the absence of these, you do operations in the following order: Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract.

So, first we multiply 10x1 for a total of 10, the add the burger with a value of 5 for an grand total of 15.

Congrats to all who got it right. The rest of you, back to school!

Oh, well. Gave it my best shot Andy. I've never heard of nor was I taught the PEMDAS technique. Even so, I always excelled at math to the extent that I made my way fairly easily through calculus, statistics and probability.

However, at my age, I think some of my knowledge has dropped along with other of my body parts.

My long suit, though, is writing. I did that with a syndicated column for 10 years. I'm most likely better at that than I am at math these days.

Thanks for the brain teaser.

 

[jennyema]

So why weren't the parenthesis shown?

I agree with Katie - if it ain't there - do what you see.

I was never taught any PEMDAS, never even heard of them till now, but it only makes sense to do the brackets first, else why would they be bracketed? So not there - don't do it.

m:

In Andy's puzzle there aren't any parens/brackets so you don't do them.

But you do have to do the multiplication first -- before the addition -- to get the right answer.

PEMDAS is just the rule about the order in which you approach things within an equation.

 

[KatM]

I got "0". I ate the burger and drank the beer! ??


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[roadfix]

I did this 10 times over. Why do I keep getting 25? And I'm Asian.

 

[dragnlaw]

I got "0". I ate the burger and drank the beer! ??


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KatM WINS!!!

 

[dragnlaw]

I did this 10 times over. Why do I keep getting 25? And I'm Asian.

Show us your method...

 

[roadfix]

Show us your method...

OK, I blame the double mugs of bier on my double vision.
My revised answer is 15.

 

[Andy M.]

I did this 10 times over. Why do I keep getting 25? And I'm Asian.

There is only one mug of beer and it's worth one point. In the example where the answer is nine, there are four mugs to add to the five to get the answer.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I'm just glad I was able to figure out the point system and I didn't have to take my shoes off.

 

[buckytom]

For those who aren't familiar with GEMDAS/PEMDAS, think of math as a language and GEMDAS is like the sentence structure.

It's just something for everyone to conform to so the words make sense, or in math terms come to an equality or balanced equation.

 

[dragnlaw]

buckytom... my marks in English were right along side of my math marks... that means absolutely zilch a moi. English Lit I was terrific in, grammar nyet.

I could never pass my French, German or Latin grammar. All that gobbledy gook about presents and particles... wha? does that mean there's soot on the gifts? or did the dog shred the presents to pieces?

so Math and Languages are not exactly my strong point... but I get along!