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BODMAS practice for class 7

Class 7 is where the order of operations stops being a rule to recite and starts being the thing the whole sum depends on. Practice here is scoped to what class 7 actually meets — brackets and nesting, negative numbers inside multiplication and division, and decimals. No exponents.

Set for Class 7. Questions are drawn to match.

20 questions. No timer, no score, nothing to lose.

What changes at class 7

By class 7 the bracket itself is not the new part. Most children have been resolving a single bracket since class 6 and can tell you it goes first. What is new is what is allowed to sit in the line beside it. At class 6 a negative number turns up in an addition or a subtraction. At class 7 it can sit inside a multiplication, be divided by another negative, and leave the final answer below zero. Bigger numbers on a class 6 shape would not be a substitute for any of that, which is why practice here is scoped by structure rather than by size.

Three things are genuinely new this year: negative numbers inside multiplication and division, decimals anywhere in the line, and brackets inside brackets. Every question a class 7 session draws comes from those three plus what earlier classes already covered. Exponents are left out, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

Negatives inside × and ÷

This is the year the two-minus rule stops being a phrase to recite. Both −3 × −4 = 12 and −24 ÷ (−6) = 4 are class 7 questions, and neither could have been asked a year earlier, because multiplying and dividing negative numbers is not in the class 6 scope at all.

The place it goes wrong is almost never the bracket. In −3 + 5 × (2 − 6) most children get 2 − 6 = −4 without pausing. The trouble starts one line later, where that −4 has to travel out through the multiplication to give −20, and then meet a −3 that has been sitting at the front of the line doing nothing the whole time. Three answers turn up here: −23, which is right; −17, when the leading minus gets dropped; and 23, when the sign is quietly discarded at the end.

The last hurdle is trust. A child who has spent six years producing answers you could count to will look at −23, decide it cannot be right, and go back to check the arithmetic rather than the sign.

Decimals in the middle of the line

From this year a decimal can appear anywhere in the line, including inside a bracket. The order of operations does not change. The arithmetic sitting under it gets heavier, and that alone is enough to knock the order over: a child who is comfortable with 1.2 × 3 on its own will meet the same product inside 1.2 × (5 − 2) + 0.4 and start working left to right, because the unfamiliar part crowds out the rule they were holding.

There is a quieter problem too. That line comes to exactly 4. A whole number falling out of a sum full of decimals reads as a mistake, and children rub out a correct answer to go and look for a wrong one.

Brackets inside brackets, before powers

A class 7 child meets nested brackets before they ever meet an exponent, which sounds backwards until you compare what each one asks for. A bracket inside a bracket is one more repetition of a rule they already have. A power is a new idea altogether, and it belongs to the following year.

Take 48 ÷ [2 × (7 − 3)] + 5. The inner bracket resolves to 4, the outer one to 8, and only then does the division happen. The step that costs marks is what the 48 is being divided by: it is the whole bracket, not the 2 standing closest to it.

About the square brackets

Exam papers and private publishers write nested questions with square brackets, so that is how they are written here. The Ganita Prakash books use round brackets throughout, and none of classes 6 to 8 sets out an ordering for ( ), { } and [ ]. Treat the square bracket as notation your child will meet in a test paper rather than as a rule with a hierarchy of its own.

How to practise it at home

Fifteen minutes, two or three times a week, does more than an hour before a test. Before your child works anything out, ask one question: is this answer going to come out above or below zero? At class 7 that single question catches most of what goes wrong, and it can be asked before a single calculation has happened.

If a test is coming, resist moving them up to class 8 for extra stretch. Class 8 adds exponents, which is a new idea rather than a harder version of this one, and a child who is still losing a minus sign through a multiplication will not be helped by meeting powers early. Stay here until the sign stops moving.

Worked examples at class 7

  1. −3 + 5 × (2 − 6) = −23

    1. Brackets first2 − 6 = −4→ −3 + 5 × (−4)
    2. Multiply before adding5 × (−4) = −20→ −3 + (−20)
    3. Add last−3 + (−20) = −23→ −23

    A negative bracket carried out through a multiplication. This is class 7's new ground.

  2. −24 ÷ (−6) + 5 = 9

    1. Divide before adding−24 ÷ (−6) = 4→ 4 + 5
    2. Add last4 + 5 = 9→ 9

    Two negatives dividing. The answer is positive, and the +5 comes after.

  3. 48 ÷ [2 × (7 − 3)] + 5 = 11

    1. Inner brackets first7 − 3 = 4→ 48 ÷ [2 × 4] + 5
    2. Brackets first2 × 4 = 8→ 48 ÷ 8 + 5
    3. Divide before adding48 ÷ 8 = 6→ 6 + 5
    4. Add last6 + 5 = 11→ 11

    Inner bracket, then the outer one, and the 48 is divided by the whole of it.

  4. 1.2 × (5 − 2) + 0.4 = 4

    1. Brackets first5 − 2 = 3→ 1.2 × 3 + 0.4
    2. Multiply before adding1.2 × 3 = 3.6→ 3.6 + 0.4
    3. Add last3.6 + 0.4 = 4→ 4

    Decimals throughout, and the answer still lands on a whole number.

  5. 6.4 ÷ (1.6 × 2) − 1.5 = 0.5

    1. Brackets first1.6 × 2 = 3.2→ 6.4 ÷ 3.2 − 1.5
    2. Divide before subtracting6.4 ÷ 3.2 = 2→ 2 − 1.5
    3. Subtract last2 − 1.5 = 0.5→ 0.5

    A decimal product inside the bracket, then a decimal division.

Where this sits in the syllabus

In the new NCERT Ganita Prakash textbooks, the order of operations is a class 7 topic: Part 1, Chapter 2, Arithmetic Expressions. That chapter builds the order out of brackets and the notion of terms rather than out of an acronym — it says outright that the order is not specified by the brackets.

Negative numbers themselves arrive a year earlier, in class 6, Chapter 10, The Other Side of Zero. Multiplying and dividing them is class 7, Part 2, Chapter 2, Operations with Integers — which is why this page has negatives inside × and ÷ and the class 6 ladder does not.

Decimals are split across both parts: Part 1, Chapter 3, A Peek Beyond the Point covers addition and subtraction, and Part 2, Chapter 4, Another Peek Beyond the Point covers multiplication and division.

Plenty of schools follow a state board or ICSE and adopt on their own timelines, so treat those chapters as the NCERT route rather than as what is on your child's desk this week.

What class 7 does not meet yet

Exponents. −2² and (−2)² look nearly identical and give different answers, and that pair belongs to class 8, where Part 1, Chapter 2, Power Play introduces exponents including zero and negative ones. Practice at class 7 leaves powers out entirely rather than showing them early.

Square brackets are used below the way exam papers and private publishers write them. The Ganita Prakash books use round brackets only, and none of classes 6 to 8 teaches a ( ) { } [ ] hierarchy — the shape is here because your child will meet it in a test paper.

Common questions

What is different about BODMAS in class 7?

The structure, not the size of the numbers. A class 6 question can have a bracket in it; a class 7 question can also have a negative number inside a multiplication, a decimal in the middle of the line, or a bracket inside another bracket. Bigger numbers on a class 6 shape would not make it class 7 work.

Are exponents included?

No. Exponents are class 8 in the Ganita Prakash books, so a class 7 session never draws one — nested brackets come first. If your child is working on powers, practise on the BODMAS page rather than this one.

My child keeps changing a negative answer. Why?

Because until this year every answer they produced was a number you could count to. A line like −3 + 5 × (2 − 6) genuinely comes to −23, and a child who does not trust that will go back and check the arithmetic rather than the sign. Asking whether the answer will land above or below zero, before any working starts, catches most of it.

Which NCERT chapter is this?

Class 7, Part 1, Chapter 2, Arithmetic Expressions, for the order itself. Negatives inside × and ÷ are Part 2, Chapter 2, Operations with Integers. Both parts matter, so the part number is worth checking — class 7 has two Chapter 2s.

Is it free, and does my child need an account?

It is free and there is no account. Nothing is typed in except answers, progress stays on the device you practise on, and no gameplay is recorded.

Is there a timer or a score?

Neither. A countdown is the last thing a child who already dreads maths needs, and a score turns practice into a test. A session is 20 questions, and a wrong answer adds two more of the same kind rather than taking anything away.

What happens when my child gets one wrong?

The ring turns amber, never red. Then the screen asks which part of the sum comes first, and once that is settled it folds the expression down one line at a time until the answer is left standing.

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