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What is the difference between a commutative and associative property?
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The difference between a commutative and an associative property is that commutativity refers to whether or not the order of the operations affects the outcome, while associativity refers to whether or not the order of the operands affects the outcome. For example, addition is commutative because the order of the numbers doesn't matter, but multiplication is associative because the order of the factors does not affect the product.