Sam has $1,000 to be distributed among two groups equally. Later, the first part is divided among five children and the second part is divided among two brothers. What is the expression that represents how the money distribution between the two groups was dispersed?
Order of Operations Prob: Sam has $1,000 to be distributed among two groups equally.
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Dr.Peterson
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I don't understand the problem, or what it has to do with order of operations.
How can one expression "represent how the money distribution was dispersed"? An expression only represents a single number. My best guess is that they just want you to write a sum of 7 numbers, each term being the amount one person gets.
What ideas do you have? That might give us an idea what the question means to you. And if you didn't quote the problem exactly, word for word, please do.
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HallsofIvy
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It's pretty easy to see what arithmetic we have to do isn't it? We start with $1000 and divide it, evenly, between two groups so each group gets $1000/2= $500. The first group divides its $500 among 5 children. It doesn't say "equally" now but assuming that, each child would get $500/5= $100. The second group divides its $500 between two brothers so each brother gets $500/2= $250.
For a "formula", take the initial amount to be "A" rather than the specific amount. Then the first group gets A/2 dollars and divides it among 5 children so each child gets (A/2)/5= A/10 dollars. The second group gets A/2 dollars also and divides it between two brothers so each brother gets (A/2)/2=A/4 dollars.
If you want to be really fancy you could say that person "p" gets (A/10)q(p)+ (A/4)(1- q(p)) where q(p)= 1 if "p" is one of the five children and q(p)= 0 if "p" is one of the two brothers.
For a "formula", take the initial amount to be "A" rather than the specific amount. Then the first group gets A/2 dollars and divides it among 5 children so each child gets (A/2)/5= A/10 dollars. The second group gets A/2 dollars also and divides it between two brothers so each brother gets (A/2)/2=A/4 dollars.
If you want to be really fancy you could say that person "p" gets (A/10)q(p)+ (A/4)(1- q(p)) where q(p)= 1 if "p" is one of the five children and q(p)= 0 if "p" is one of the two brothers.
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