Question

Sarah’s dad tells her she can have the greater of the following two amounts for her allowance (in dollars):

2 times the difference of 5 and 1

5 times 1 minus 2


What is Sarah’s allowance, in dollars?

Answer 1

the difference of 5 and 1 means subtract
2 times that amount means multiply.
so you get 2 * (5-1) = 2*4 = 8

Answer 2

as for the 5 times 1 minus 2, exactly how was that written?

Answer 3

times happens before minus, so then it would be (5*1) -2 = 4-2 = 2
maybe.

Answer 4

going by order of operations multiplication comes first so it would be 5(1)-2
so 5-2
or 3

Answer 5

* eh, yea, 5-2 = 3