Accuplacer Practice Test 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The misconception regarding the order of operations is a significant stumbling block for many students and can severely impact performance on the Accuplacer test. The order of operations, often remembered by the acronym PEMDAS (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, Addition and Subtraction), dictates the sequence in which mathematical operations should be performed to obtain the correct solution.

When students misunderstand or neglect this concept, they may solve equations incorrectly by performing operations out of order. For instance, when faced with an expression like 3 + 5 × 2, a common mistake would be to add the 3 and 5 first, resulting in an incorrect answer of 16, instead of correctly multiplying 5 and 2 first, which results in the correct answer of 13. Such errors demonstrate the crucial nature of adhering to the established order of operations in mathematics, highlighting how this misconception can lead to significant errors and lower performance on assessments like the Accuplacer.

In contrast, other options may relate to specific areas of math, but they do not encompass the foundational principle governing the correct sequencing of operations as extensively. Understanding the order of operations is critical for tackling varied mathematical problems effectively.