Order of operations can sometimes cause calculations to resolve in ways we did not mean for. Using parenthesis can nudge the program more in the direction you mean for it to calculate an answer instead of the ordinary precedence set by the language. This is a C# program, and you can read about C# precedence here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/operators/arithmetic-operators

Why are there "()" here?

Well I feel really dumb

1. You need to return a Boolean value instead of a string representation of a Boolean value. Therefore, you don't need String
2. You need to state what input the regex will be testing for (use the self reserved word). Otherwise the regex will automatically return false.

Two reasons.

1. count only accepts one string as an argument.

2. ('x' && 'X') evaluates to false, so you are essentially saying str.count(false).