Order of Operations – Advanced

VERSE I
So if you're gonna learn some PEMDAS, we'll start off slow
let's start with an easy one, you already know
what's three plus two plus five minus nine
just go from left to right and I swear you'll be fine
three and two is five, five and five is ten
ten minus nine is one, you're done my friend

But now I'm gonna throw in just a tiny little wrinkle
so if you PEMDAS brain can start to think well
what's three plus two plus five times four
you gotta multiply first if you wanna raise ya score
five times four is twenty, three plus two is five
five and twenty is twentyfive, you took a PEM-DAS on a test drive

CHORUS
P-E-M-D-A-S, the triple ‘o’, the order of operations
PEM-DAS the way I flow
P! parentheses by day
E! exponents at night, then
M! multiply
D! divide from left to right
A! add
S! subtract
a piece of cake, but that's the final step you take

VERSE II
Let's say you wanna take the square of negative eight
of course you go and punch right it in your calculate
you punch in "negative" then "eight" then "squared"
then you hit the equal sign because you think you're prepared

negative sixty-four, you're feeling high as a kite
but then your math mind says "hold up that ain't right"
it's not that my ti-83 just can't hack it
I just didn't put my negative eight inside the bracket

a negative times a negative's a positive, please
but not if you forget the parentheses

a calculator always follows PEMDAS to a tee
so it squared the eight first, then did the negative, see?

but parentheses negative eight squared, I'm sure
you'll get the right answer: positive sixty four

CHORUS
P-E-M-D-A-S, the triple ‘o’, the order of operations
PEM-DAS the way I flow
P! parentheses by day
E! exponents at night, then
M! multiply
D! divide from left to right
A! add S! subtract
a piece of cake, but that's the final step you take

VERSE III
Turning from arithmetic into the algebraic section
you gotta do PEMDAS in the opposite direction
still gotta know the order of operations
try to solve for x in this here algebra equation:

two x to the third plus six equals twenty two
reverse PEMDAS, you know what you gotta do
deal with addition first, you’re a machine
take six from both sides, two x cubed is sixteen

division comes next, we keep clearing the slate
divide both sides by two, and x cubed equals eight
and then you guessed it, we’re doing exponents last
take the cube root of both sides, x is two, PEMDAS

CHORUS
P-E-M-D-A-S the triple ‘o’, the order of operations
PEM-DAS the way I flow
P! parentheses by day
E! exponents at night, then
M! multiply
D! divide from left to right
A! add
S! subtract
a piece of cake, but that's the final step you take

VERSE IV
So be sure to heed the every rule that herein I’m submittin’
but sometimes it comes down to the way it was written
‘cuz sometimes when it comes to the order of operations
you gotta make your own interpretation

WHAT
like what if you wanna solve z to the y
you write "y" real small, and you raise it up high
but if you're raising z to the y to the x
do y to the x first, then z to that power next
unless brackets surround z to the y, that's a priority
the brackets are KING, they got authority

CHORUS
P-E-M-D-A-S the triple ‘o’, the order of operations
PEM-DAS the way I flow
P! parentheses by day
E! exponents at night, then
M! multiply
D! divide from left to right
A! add
S! subtract
a piece of cake, but that's the final step you take