A lot of people are having trouble with this math problem that requires some basic algebra

[SheilaT]

60. Hmmm. I took algebra in the mid-60's. I do not recall

order of operations being learned, although it's possible I've merely forgotten. However, my high school math was UICSM, University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics and it was the most amazing math program ever. I'm yet to stumble across someone I didn't go to high school with who's even heard about it.

In any case, in this amazing math program we proved EVERYTHING. It was rigorous, and apparently taught us stuff that normally never is taught in high school. Thirty-five years after taking UICSM, without another math class inbetween, I tested into algebra 2 at my local junior college. And I'd sit in that class, and in the subsequent college algebra, and phrases from that old math class would bubble up to my consciousness. Things like something is true if and only if something else is true. And that if and only if statement never came up in my jr. college class. When I asked the teachers about it, they said that such language simply wasn't commonly used at that level, only at higher levels. And so on.

The problem with most high school math is that it is predicated on rote memorization of various things, and then plugging them in blindly to the problems. My UICSM program taught me to think, to question, to understand what I was doing. Which is why I find that problems like these that assume parentheses to be incredibly dishonest and misleading. Also, the audio explanation talks about the problem that arises if you input that problem into the calculator. Well, duh! While calculators are truly wonderful (OMG! How I LOVE graphing calculators, having solved far too many quadratic equations before they came about) they still have their flaws. And the problem with total reliance on those calculators is that you may never understand that those flaws exist.