I have another one What is the value of 42-2(3x5+1)? I thought you worked the parentheses first which would be 16, then subtract 42 from 2 and you get 39, you would then multiply 16x39 and you would get 624. But the answers I have to choose from are 8, 1, -16 and -21. What am I doing wrong?

Online, “*” is used to indicate multiplication to avoid confusion with “x” as an unknown.

Assuming no typos (either yours or the text):

Get rid of parentheses first.

42 - 2(3*5+1) = 42 - 2(16) = 42 - 32 = 10

42 - 2 ≠ 39

To solve the expression 42 - 2(3x5 + 1), we need to follow the correct order of operations (also known as PEMDAS or BODMAS), which stands for Parentheses/Brackets, Exponents/Orders, Multiplication/Division, and Addition/Subtraction.

Let's break it down step by step:

Step 1: Simplify inside the parentheses/brackets:
Within the parentheses, 3 multiplied by 5 equals 15, then adding 1 gives us 16.

So the expression becomes: 42 - 2(16)

Step 2: Apply multiplication:
Multiply 2 by 16, which equals 32.

Now, the expression is: 42 - 32

Step 3: Apply subtraction:
Subtract 32 from 42, which gives us 10.

Therefore, the final answer to the expression 42 - 2(3x5 + 1) is 10.

It seems there might be an error in the answer choices you provided, as none of them match the correct answer of 10.