ARITHMETIC Arithmetic Operations (Page 5 of 6)

To see why this is necessary, consider what the first fraction would look like without the additional parentheses: 5.5/3.7-2.9. According to the order of operations, the TI-83/84 would divide 5.5 by 3.7 first, then subtract 2.9. That is, the calculator would perform (5.5/3.7) - 2.9, which is not the meaning of the original expression! The additional parentheses around the denominator force the calculator to do the subtraction first.

As a last example, let's evaluate a complex fraction. To evaluate the expression

(21+135/18)/((11.84+9.53)/(0.45-0.62)),

we must use additional parentheses to replace the middle and lower division bar grouping symbols. The numerator and denominator must be placed in parentheses since each has more than one term. The denominator is itself a fraction, and so its numerator and denominator must also be placed in parentheses.
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