Pretend the < and > are brackets
I'll use an example. 5+5+2x = 2 < (3*2) -5>
basically, if you use an equation were something is in brackets, it's because the problem inside needs to be solved before the rest, but there is a part of the equation that needs to be used first inside the brackets. I don't know if that makes sense,but hope that helps, if not tell me what's confusing!
