It’s always a heated question. And depending on who you ask, math can be the devil. But whether or not you consider yourself a math whiz, there’s a brand-new equation floating around the internet that is forcing us to reconsider our arithmetic skills. Do you remember how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide? This math question will test your recollection in front of all your friends on social media. If you get it right, be sure to share it and brag to all of your friends. Most of them probably won’t get it right. This problem is stumping adults everywhere across the nation. Are you up to the challenge? When helping kids or grandkids with homework, it always amazes me just how much I have forgotten from my school days. It also amazes me to see what kids learn as early as elementary school these days. It truly is unbelievable how far education has come since back in the day. At first, you might think this problem is quite easy. But actually is requires some complicated knowledge about the order of calculations. You see you can’t simply solve this problem in the order it is written.

Think back to your time in math class. Do you ever remember a teacher saying “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally?”

Oh, I remember. Yes, I remember… This sentence was actually a mnemonic device to remember the acronym PEMDAS. But, do you remember what PEMDAS actually stands for? Think far back in your brain… If you recall PEMDAS refers to “Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.” Yes, that’s the order in which you’re supposed to execute these arithmetic problems. Don’t just go left to right. You’ll almost always get the wrong answer. Scroll down for the solution. First you need to divide 3 by 1/3. That gives you 9. Now you subtract nine from nine and then add 1. The result is one. See, that wasn’t so bad! You just needed to remember the mnemonic device PEMDAS, but if you didn’t remember it you probably didn’t get it right.