In Excel, operators are evaluated according to the standard order of operations: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division (from left to right), Addition and Subtraction (from left to right).

For example, the formula =5+3*2 will return 11 because the 3*2 is evaluated first, and then the 5 is added to that.

You can use parentheses to override the standard order of operations. For example, the formula =(5+3)*2 will return 16 because the 5+3 is enclosed in parentheses, so it is evaluated first, and then the result is multiplied by 2.