The rules that say which calculation comes first in an expression.
They are:
• do everything inside parentheses first: ()
• then do exponents, like x2, x3 etc
• then do multiplies and divides from left to right
• then do adds and subtracts from left to right
Example:
5 × (3 + 4) − 2 × 8
= 5 × 7 − 2 × 8
= 35 − 16
= 19