Do you remember your school days, when a teacher first explained that math problems must be solved in a particular order? Multiply before you add, work out the parentheses first, and always move from left to right. It sounds simple enough, yet these very rules trip up more people than almost anything else in arithmetic. One small slip in the order, and a perfectly easy sum gives a wildly wrong answer. In this quiz, we will put your skills to the test with 15 problems. No calculators allowed, let's get cracking!
2 + 3 × 4 = ?
9
24
14
20
5 + 5 × 0 = ?
0
5
10
25
(5 + 3)² ÷ 4 = ?
34
26
8
16
18 ÷ (3 + 6) × 2 = ?
1
4
12
9
(6 + 4) ÷ (2 + 3) = ?
5
10
2
7
2 + 2 × 2 − 2 ÷ 2 = ?
3
5
1
4
5 × (4 − 2)³ = ?
1000
40
120
30
8 − 3² + 2 × 4 = ?
33
7
9
25
(12 ÷ 4)² − 2 × 3 = ?
12
3
6
15
100 − 10 × 5 + 25 ÷ 5 = ?
455
55
45
95
50 − 2(3 + 4)² = ?
2304
-48
48
-2304
2 × [3 + (4 − 1)²] = ?
24
20
15
36
−4² + (−4)² = ?
32
0
-32
16
4 + 4 ÷ 4 + 4 × 4 − 4 = ?
20
17
8
12
[(8 + 4) ÷ 3]² − 5 = ?
43
11
21
139
Back to the Blackboard...
Well, it seems the order got the better of you a few times, and you are far from alone in that. These rules are surprisingly easy to forget, especially when a problem looks simple enough to solve at a glance. That is exactly how they catch people out. The good news is that once the order clicks, it stays with you. Why not brush up on the basics and give this quiz another go? You may be surprised how quickly it comes back. Thanks for playing along!
Nicely done! You clearly remember your lessons and you kept your head when the problems grew more tangled. You knew to clear the parentheses first and to multiply before adding, and most of these sums came out just right. A few of the trickier ones slipped past you, but that is no shame at all, as some were designed to catch even careful solvers. With a little more practice, you would be flawless. A very fine result indeed!
Outstanding! You are a genuine master of the order of operations, and it shows. From nested brackets to negative exponents, not a single one of these problems managed to lead you astray. You worked patiently, followed the rules exactly, and refused to be rushed into the obvious wrong answer. That is precisely the sort of care that separates a good solver from a great one. Take a well earned bow, because this was a truly flawless performance from start to finish!
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7/20/2026
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