Cacooning

(Not Cocooning)
A more visual approach to backtracking
No caterpillars were harmed in the making of this web page.

This method is by Mr George Liondas from Trinity Grammar.

This method I would like to call cocooning. But the caterpillar on the right objected strongly. So I will call it cacooning.

Place cocoons around the "x". But for the sake of the caterpillar we will call them "cacoons". A form of mathematical cocoons. We place cacoons around the closest operation to the "x". We follow the order of operations which states that we complete brackets first, then multiplication or division and last addition or subtraction.