Riddle
What is 40 divided by half plus 15?
Answer:
95
Explanation:
Alright, my curious quiz enthusiasts, get ready for another mind-boggling challenge! Today, we’ll unravel the mystery of the expression “40 divided by half plus 15.” If you got 35, then I have a not-so-good news. Let’s go over it together.
Now, let’s break it down step by step. The expression consists of two operations: division and addition. But here’s where it gets tricky—the order of operations, also known as the “PEMDAS” rule, comes into play.
According to the PEMDAS rule, we must perform the division before the addition. So, let’s dive in:
Step 1: Division We have “40 divided by half.” To divide 40 by half, we need to remember that dividing by a fraction is the same as multiplying by its reciprocal. In this case, half is equivalent to 1/2 (we are not dividing 40 by 2 as you might first think, rather, we are dividing by 1/2), so we can rewrite the expression as 40/(1/2) or 40 x 2/1.
Step 2: Multiplication Now, we can multiply 40 by 2/1, which gives us 80.
Step 3: Addition Finally, we add 15 to our result from Step 2. Adding 15 to 80 gives us a grand total of 95.
Ta-da! The answer to the expression “40 divided by half plus 15” is indeed 95. It’s easy to see how the confusion arises when we mistake “half” for the numerical value 2. But fear not, my fellow quiz enthusiasts, with a little understanding of the order of operations, we can conquer even the trickiest of mathematical puzzles!
