what is 6-8/(-4)

Question

please explain and put the order of operation please

Answer 1

6 - 8/(-4) is the same as 6 - [8/(-4)]

do the division first 8/-4 = -2

then subtract

6- -2 = 6+2 = 8

you might be tempted to treat the problem as

(6-8)/(-4) = -2/-4 = 1/2

but the order of arithmetic operations is PEMDAS

where the D comes before S, division before Subtraction

to get 1/2 you'd need parentheses. P is parentheses, which means do what's inside parentheses first.

E is exponents

M multiplication

A is addition

Answer 2

You've probably heard of PEMDAS. It's an acronym to help guide you as to what order you should do math like this. Parentheses Exponents Multiplication/Division Addition/Subtraction.

Here we have 6 - 8/(-4). PEMDAS says hey let's look at parenthesis first. The parenthesis around the negative 4 here is just to make sure you don't think you're subtracting 4. Instead, we're dividing 8 by negative 4.

Next in PEMDAS is exponents. There aren't any exponents! So we'll continue.

Next is multiplication and division. We have 8 divided by negative 4, so let's do that. 8/(-4) = -2.

So now at this point we have 6 - (-2). It turns out that subtracting a negative number makes it a positive (the negatives cancel!). So we can rewrite it as 6 + 2, which = 8.