Negative three cubed is written with the sign inside the brackets, as (-3) * (-3) * (-3). What is its value?

Explanation

The brackets put the minus sign inside every copy of the factor, so the opening pair cancels to 9, and multiplying that 9 by a third copy of -3 flips the running result back below zero, giving 27 below zero. Answering 27 applies the rule for an even count of factors to an odd count, and stopping at 9 leaves the third factor unused.