What is associative and commutative in 6th grade math?

Answer 1

You will already be familiar with binary operations such as addition and multiplication. These are called binary oprations because they are rules about combining two elements (numbers) to get a third element.

The associative property for addition states that if you have two binary operations, the order in which you carry them out does not matter.

Thus,

(2 + 3) + 5 = 2 + (3 + 5) = 10

And similarly, for multiplication,

(2 * 3) * 5 = 2 * (3 * 5) = 30

The commutative property for addition states that the order of the numbers does not matter.

Thus,

2 + 3 = 3 + 2 = 5

And similarly, for multiplication,

2 * 3 = 3 * 2 = 6

Note that neither the associative nor the commuitative properties apply to subtraction or division.