How to find the difference between two numbers

Question

I ran into a question on a practice test which said "What is the difference between -8 and -3? I am 13, and I am quite capable of subtracting negative numbers; I just did -8--3 to get my answer, making it -8+3, then making that -5. However, when I checked my answers, I was told that it was wrong, and the answer was 5.

When finding the difference between two numbers, do you subtract the bigger number from the smaller or vice versa?

Thank a lot!

Answer 1

I would read this as "what is the distance between these two numbers". The "distance" between two numbers is always non-negative.

Answer 2

The way I see this and apologies I am not expert, but:

1 -> 10 is the number line. 5 is where we want to be, the target number.

Variable + Target / 2 = Mean / Target = the degree of difference

Examples:

10 + 5 / 5 / 2 = 1.5

5 + 5 / 5 / 2 = 1

1 + 5 / 5 / 2 = 0.6

Look for the Mean, add the Variable + Target / 2 = Mean / Target = the degree of difference between the Target and the variable.

Apologies if this is not what was intended. This was a good exercise for my interpretation of the same question.