>The phrase to remember is “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally,” although the technical term is the mathematical >“order of operations” (if you do a google). Order of Operations defines the “order” in which you do the calcs. The >phrase above is a memory aid: > >P = Do items in Parathesis first (although I’m not sure the 6th grade has done this yet so the students can ignore this step). >E = Do Exponents next (again, not sure if they’ve covered this yet). >M & D = Then do all Multiplication and Division working left to right >A & S = Then Addition and Subtraction working left to right > >So, in your example below: > >-24 / 4 x -2 would be, working left to right…(-24 / 4) which equals -6, then multiplied by -2, for an answer of 12. > >Regarding the negatives and multiplication, you listed all the right rules. The key is using PEMDAS to break the problem >down into steps...all multiplication/division, before doing addition/subtraction. I suspect the left-to-right idea will >help out a lot. >Fox will give you the correct answer, as long as you insert * where multiplications are implied i.e.
-24/4(-2) is the same as -24/4*(-2) so, ?-24/4*(-2) ==> 12Now all you have to do is figure out *why* it's 12. Your buddy gives a pretty good explanation.