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Order of Operations (PEMDAS) Videos 5 videos

Introduction to PEMDAS
6569 Views

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. What did she do? Slander the process of order of operations?

CAHSEE Math 1.4 Algebra and Functions
295 Views

CAHSEE Math Algebra and Functions: Drill Set 1, Problem 4. Which operation should be performed first?

CAHSEE Math 3.2 Algebra and Functions
193 Views

Algebra and Functions: Drill Set 3, Problem 2. Simplify the expression in this video.

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CAHSEE Math 4.4 Number Sense 195 Views


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Description:

Number Sense: Drill Set 4, Problem 4. Solve the expression.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour.

00:06

2/5 divided by... 1/15 minus 3/10 equals...what?

00:12

And here are the potential answers...

00:16

Well, this question isn't big on words -- it's just asking whether we can subtract and divide fractions.

00:21

Piece of cake. Because we don't want to make PEMDAS mad,

00:24

we start with the junk inside the parentheses.

00:28

First we have to get a common denominator for 15 and 10.

00:34

Both fit into 30 pretty easily... in that case, let's multiply top and bottom of 1

00:38

over 15 by 2 to become 2 over 30...

00:43

...then we multiply top and bottom of 3 over 10 by 3 to get 9 over 30.

00:49

2 minus 9 is -7... so we can rewrite the problem now as 2 fifths divided by -7 over 30.

00:56

And remember that dividing by a fraction is the same thing as multiplying by its inverse.

01:01

So rewrite the problem as:

01:03

Two fifths TIMES -30 over 7

01:07

And we have -60 over 35

01:10

We can reduce that bad boy to -12 over 7 and voila -- it's answer A.

01:15

Thank goodness. Now we won't have to deal with the wrath of PEMDAS.

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