Subtract the product of three and four from thirty six. Then decide by the quotient of nine and three, subtracted by fifteen.

Question

Can't figure this out... Know the answer is 2... Can't figure out how to get there... Please help!

Answer 1

Your second word in the second sentence is "decide".  Did you mean to write "divide"?  Also if "subtracted by fifteen" really means "subtracted from fifteen", then the problem in math symbols would be written as (36-3*4)/(15-9/3).

Using PEMDAS the first operation is in the left parentheses where you first multiply 3*4 to get 12, then you subtract the 12 from the 36 to get 24. Next you work in the second parentheses where you first divide 9 by 3 to get 3 which is then subtracted from 15 to get 12. Now take the 24 and divide by 12 to obtain your final answer of 2.

Math uses certain words to mean certain things and altering the words causes confusion, so be very careful with math words. I hope this helps you.