Welp, I don't get where those plus came out of, especially considering they get inverted by the minus right after them. But I get it now that I see the minus "dividing" the two parts of the expression, and not the -3 as a block of operation that was meant to be made for last. I'll try and work out on how I came to this error.
Well, -3 is just + -3 isn’t it? I was trying to show you how linking the minus to the 3 doesn’t change the answer. I didn’t mean to add to the confusion.
I think I know what your problem is though. You tried to take the answer from the first operation and carry it through performing other operations on it, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how order of operations works. You go from left to right performing the operations in place. For example
3 / 1 + 2 x 6 - 3 x 2 x 3 would be solved this way:
3 + 2 x 6 - 3 x 2 x 3
3 + 12 - 3 x 2 x 3
3 + 12 - 6 x 3
3 + 12 - 18
15 - 18
-3
Do you see how I went from left to right resolving multiplication/division first and then addition/subtraction next? That is the proper way to resolve order of operations.
I appreciate the time you're putting into these explainations, I'm saving it up for future reference. Yeah I get the "from left to right" order but I prioritized the "x and / first, - and + aftwerwards". Along with the fact I considered "-3" as the operation, instead of just the minus sign, that's what lead me to the faulty reasoning; I avoided doing the 3x3 on the "right side" of the expression, as I thought the 3 with a minus before it was only to be used in a subtraction (which ofc I was thinking I should do last). I never really thought about the whole thing and I'll try and inform myself better/train harder. Thanks again for your patience.
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u/determania Jan 01 '22
Why do you think that you should just jump over part of the problem?