Learn about Applications of Order of Operations

TenMarks teaches you how to solve application problems using order of operations.

Learn about Applications of Order of Operations Let's learn about consumer applications of order of operations. The problem given to us says that Rea bought five carved wooden beads for $3.00 each and eight glass beads for $2.00 each. So, she bought two types if beads; one for $3.00 each and one for $2.00 each. Deduce a mathematical relation to express the statement. That’s the first thing we've got to do. And also find the total amount Rea spent on the beads. So, let's look at what we know. What we know is Rea bought five wooden beads for $3.00 each and she bought eight glass beads for $2.00 each. This is what we’re told. We also know that the total money she spent was; money spent on wooden beads plus money spent on glass beads. So, what do we know? We know that the money she spent on wooden beads—let's write money on wooden beads, how much did she spend? What she spent was she bought five of them times $3.00 each. So, she spent a dollar amount of five of them times $3.00 each. So dollar sign, five and to three are dollar signs. Money spent on glass beads equals—well she bought eight of them at $2.00 each so I can say that she spent 8 x $2.00. So now that I know this, we know that the expression that we were looking for— the mathematical relation that we’re looking for is total money spent equals (5 x $3.00) + (8 x $2.00). Now, that’s the expression. Now in order for us to calculate it, what do we do? What we do is we look at what is 5 x 3 is 15 + [8 x 2 = 16]. Adding the two, she spent $31.00 total; $15.00 on the wooden beads and $16.00 on the glass beads. Quickly recapping what we've learned, if she bought five wooden beads for $3.00, eight glass beads for $2.00 each, we can form an expression which is total money spent equals (5 x $3.00) + (8 x $2.00). Now, because these were in parenthesis and they were multiplication, we have to do that first. First, you multiply and divide or you do parenthesis and then we add so $15.00 + $16.00 gives us $31.00.