Math: right answer

[kinyo]

my answer is 2

i read 2(9+3) as "2 is the coefficient of (9+3)" ... although the operation between 2 and (9+3) is indeed multiplication, the multiplication cannot be broken by PEMDAS rule because of the definition of 'coefficient' ... 2 mutiplied by (9+3) is a single quantity

the original expression 48÷2(9+3) is indeed ambiguous and i don't blame people giving 288 as the answer ... people used to writing mathematical expressions in a single line are aware of this and would never write such expression, they will add more parenthesis to remove the ambiguity

i would write 48÷(2*(9+3)) to get 2, or (48÷2)*(9+3) to get 288

in short ... it is a dumb question, so it gets dumb answers!