Which symbol is used to group expressions that should be evaluated before others?

• A. Brackets
• B. Commas
• C. Quotation marks
• D. Parentheses

Answer: (D)

Grouping expressions with parentheses tells you to do the stuff inside first. In the order of operations, anything inside parentheses is evaluated before outer operations like multiplication or addition. For example, 2*(3+4) becomes 27, which equals 14. Without parentheses, as in 23+4, you’d first do the multiplication to get 6, then add 4 to get 10, a different result. Commas separate items, quotation marks mark text, and brackets are used in other contexts, but parentheses are the symbol that enforces evaluating the grouped expressions first.