I'm About to Blow Your Mind

[Noblejanobii]

The answer is not ten, as two people have pointed out. Allow me to restructure the problem for you:

((6^2)*3)/2 + 4

This, believe it or not, is the exact same problem. See, the way PEMDAS is taught, you do the exponent first, as the parenthesis only contain a three and distributive property does not apply here because the three is the one encompassed not the equation to be distributed to. Then, the way you are supposed to do it is multiplication and division in order of how it appears. This means, as you read the equation left to right, you are to do the operation as it is labeled. This means, if you look at the original equation, you would have 36 and then divide by 2, then multiply by 3, and then finally add 4.

You also could have done 36 times 3 divided by 2 plus 4 and it would result in the same answer. Or, 1.5 times 36 and add 4. If you got 10, then one of two things occurred. Either, a) you applied an unnecessary theorem, or, b) you were taught/applied PEMDAS wrong. As far as I can tell, most of my friends that went through the public school system for middle school came out with 10, while those of us that came from the private school system got 58. Why? Well, in my state at least, it is taught that you always multiply first, then you divide, rather than doing it from left to right as you come. Given the widespread national response these posts on Twitter have gotten, I'm going to say this is not an isolated event.