Has this viral math problem exposed a detrimental problem in the US education system?

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By Catherine Davis | January 23, 2018
Commentator, Chief Editor, L&SS

Listen & Study Services' Commentary:

Has this viral math problem exposed a detrimental problem in the US education system? Now that is a question that would take a great deal of time to answer; or in this case, it would take a long time to resolve this perplexing (equation?) question.

I am only going to focus on this one math question to highlight what I see as 'Big Trouble' for students; in particularly, it is disastrous for Finance students.

You see, I was a Finance major; thus, I had to take way more math classes than students who majored in other studies. Fortunately, for me, I love math, so I didn't mind taking all of those math classes. And, if I needed help solving equations or functions, I simply went for tutoring. It wasn't an issue for me.

Now, today, I came across this YouTube video that asked viewers to solve a math question (correctly). I went right to work (in my head) before reading the comments below and watching the rest of the video for the answer. I have to tell you all, I was floored to see how this video creator came up with his answer which was way different than mine. Ugh!! I thought! No way is his answer right when I used the 'Order of Operations' to solve this problem.

I did the next best thing in order to get to the bottom of my dilemma. I scrolled down to read the comments. Most everyone was attacking the person who got the same answer as me. They did so because he was adamant about his answer. The others who got the same answer as I did, simply repeated all of our sentiments surrounding this math question, "But, I used PEMDAS"! hAHAha!

There was one person who told a commenter that he/she had bad teachers. Then another person commented that he didn't go to school in 1917 when they taught PEMDAS. We all laughed. He said, I was recently taught it.

I finally came across the right comment that helped me arrive at my current trend-of-thought, "I was cheated somehow in one or more of my math classes. I don't know how I made it through all of those classes believing this lie.

Anyway, what the last comment stated was that PEMDAS was clarified about one hundred years ago.

I tried it the clarified way, and arrived at the same answer as the YT video poster. I feel better now, but I am still very disappointed that I wasn't shown the correct way in school.

My way PEMDAS: Parenthesis >>> Exponents >>> Multiplication >>> Division >>> Adding >>> Subtr:

6 / 2(1+2)= 6 / 2 (3)= 6/6=1

The correct way using the clarified version of PEMDAS which is BODMAS now: Brackets >>> Order >>> Division >>> Multi >>> Addition >>> Subtr:

2nd 1st 3rd
6/2 X 1(1+2)=
6/2 X 3=
3X3=9

Here's a link to a professor who says both answers are correct since the question is ambiguous and not a real math problem>>>

But wait, there is a much better way to remember 'Order of Operations' if you care to learn more... It's acronym is GEMA (Grouping, Exponents, Multiplication, Addition.