Bahamut.Bojack said:
It's 2. The Parenthesis should be dealt with first. 48 divided by 2 multiplied by 12 isn't the same thing as 48 divided by 2(12).
With 48 divided by 2 multiplied by 12 you just go from left to right and the answer is 288.
With 48 divided by 2(12) you wouldn't do the division before getting rid of the parenthesis. After the parenthesis are gone, then you finish the problem by going left to right. Doing 2(12) is the next step in the problem leaving with 48 divided by 24.
The answer is 2.
No. The parenthesis rule in PEMDAS means you do the stuff
inside the parenthesis. Once that's done, parenthesis like 2(12) are equivalent to 2*12, meaning that it really is 48/2*12.
As mentioned previously, ambiguous notation means the answer is unclear. I'd go with 288 given the problem as written but meh.