This thread is a showcase for bad math, language arts, or other questions and texts. Ultramarina came up with the idea and I decided to implement because I want to stop working now (4:45 Pacific time).

Rules:

• Ultimate Bad Questions are not restricted to homework or even questions. The title just sounded better that way to me (The Ultimate Bad Homework/Exam/Textbook/Oral Question and Reading Passage Thread would have surpassed the character limit anyway).
• Particularly witty solutions will earn emoticons as prizes.
• Anyone can award emoticons.

Here's our first question, brought to us by fourth grade math, with an approach to the solution kindly provided by Evemomma:

"24 students wanted to watch candy being made in the firehouse kitchen. The students organized into even groups and gathered around each of 5 pots of candy. How many gathered around each pot? How many students had to stand behind another student?"

Evemomma's approach to a solution:


DAD22 suggested a drawing of the firehouse kitchen. I think the forensics team would appreciate that.



Evemomma and DAD22, congratulations on winning the first Ultimate Bad Question emoticons!

And of course, no Bad Question thread would be complete without the story of the Pineapple and the Hare.

Two I saved from DS's disastrous second grade year:

"Robert can swim the first 50 meters of a race in 1 minute. Then he slows down by 12 seconds for each of the next 50 meters of a race. How long will it take Robert to swim a 400-meter race?"

"Amrita walks 1,416 yd. to the library from her house. She then goes to a shop which is 165 yd. from the library. How far is the shop from her house?"

From 5th grade Social Studies:
How many people do you think died in the Cold War?

My son's answer: thousands. Teacher marked it wrong with a note "none, no shots were fired". His explanation: the Cold War led to both the Viet Nam War and Korean War, right, and what about those shot trying to leave East Germany?

If it's what he THOUGHT, how can it be wrong? If you don't want him to THINK, don't ask!

Oh, gosh... sometimes it feels like we could supply content to an entire thread all on our own.

This week's gem:

T/F Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein for Lord Byron.

:blink-blink-blink:

DD: "In what sense do they mean.... "FORRRRRR" him? She hated him. Not like she'd have written a novel FOR him. Not really. But on the other hand... it was sort of this 'exercise' that Byron kind of sparked to start with, and she was the only one of them that actually finished the resultant novel... AUGH!! I have no idea what they are looking for here!!!" (She got this wrong, by the way, with her 'strict' interpretation that Mary Shelley would probably sooner have chewed off her own writing arm than do ANYTHING "for" Byron.)

------

I'm also trying to recall a particularly bad cloze question with answer selections from when DD was in 4th grade. It was hilarious, because one of the cloze selections given was grammatically correct-- and hilarious. DD picked right up on it.

I think it was:

"Jenny is __________ by her classmates."

One of the selections was "profiting." DD explained that if Jenny were a clever girl, perhaps she had figured out how to do homework for cash. LOL...

Yes, her English teacher gave her credit for it.

I'll remember some real doozies from social studies and science, I'm sure.

I can't quite remember this one fully, but DD had a reading assignment recently with a story about a girl, "Jane," who thought a boy was mean and then saw the error of her ways when he did something kind for somebody later on in the story (no day was specified).

Question: When did Jane learn that she was wrong in her opinion of Bill?

DD's answer: In the second paragraph.

(This was marked wrong. I guess this isn't a "terrible question," EXACTLY...)

How about, generally the math word problem questions that have given names that most children otherwise never encounter, so that mental effort that is meant to be attached to the word problem is redirected to the interesting new name. Not the worst problem, but pervasive.

7th Grade Math: the teacher never made it past the if section before my son piped up with his question:

"If a person is doing two jumping jacks a minute at a constant rate of speed ..."

To which my son interjected, "So they were able jump higher than the Twin Towers and then fall that distance without dying and then do it again - all at a steady rate of speed?"

I agree with you, but a book that only used common names such as Alice and Bill would be deemed insufficiently multicultural.

Uh. Define "common/most children." (Who's named Alice and Bill anymore?)

The kids in DD's class are about 40% South Asian, so to her Amrita is not going to be a distracting name.

I doubt this is really a problem for anyone. If it is, that child either will quickly adapt or will need serious remedial math help anyway.

It's good for people to be exposed to names they would supposedly "never encounter" so that when such names are actually encountered, as they will be at some point, they won't seem odd. For a melting pot, culture here in the U.S. can seem awfully insular at times. There's a difference between disliking the inclusion of other cultures and it being a math instructional issue.

sqrt( (1416 + 165*cos(A))^2 + (165*sin(A))^2 ) yards

Where A is the angle turned to go toward the shop after reaching the library. That's the answer they were expecting, right?

That's the answer if you want to get a B on the problem. An A requires using Taxicab geometry.

Good point; there are many unknowns, but streets are possibly involved. I feel strongly that any proper answer would take into account the geographic layout of the area, as well as the any curvature of the Earth surface of the planet or planetoid, if on a body massy enough for gravitation to exert such an effect, and the implied detour distance to pick up one's spacesuit before heading out of the airlock otherwise. Sadly, such suggestions drop like lead balloons in a vacuum when advanced during an educational team meeting.

Can we even be certain that this trip took place on planet Earth?

Not homework, but if you want to see some truly awful, fully subjective questions- look at the new Smarter Balance Assessments that are based on common core. I can only imagine how bad this is going to be for some of our out of the box thinkers! It's like someone took the Pineapple and the Hare and got all excited to write similar questions!

One I saw the other day is a short story for 4th grade about bunnies in a field eating clover. You write the next paragraph and finish the story "in a logical way".

My son, in his gore obsession, said that he'd write about a wild lawnmower killing the bunnies but they don't die. They become zombie bunnies who seek their revenge on the farmer night after night.

Yeah... how does that get graded on their rubric?

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/

Scroll down to "Explore Sample Items".

I think it's safe to assume that this is a bad way of phrasing a linear math question, but even then it's still a failure, because they don't even bother to indicate whether this is an addition or a subtraction problem. Was the library further from the house, or the shop? Just because she stopped at the library first doesn't mean it's closer.

- You can bring books into a shop, but you can't bring many things you might buy at an unspecified type of shop into a library.

- Going to your furthest destination first means you're unencumbered for a greater portion of your trip.

Those were my thoughts as well. DS was unfortunately stuck with a teacher who had only the fuzziest grasp of math concepts, and was careless to boot. She marked him wrong for writing "Not enough information to answer" and drawing a diagram showing a circle containing points where the shop could have been.

I remember that. I hereby award your son and his teacher some emoticons!

(For your son for his analysis)

(For his teacher's reaction)

Yesss! I knew if we just kept plugging, our advocacy efforts would be rewarded someday.

If anything, I think the other question I posted is even worse.

So, okay, I read a bit of background here, and I now understand the question less than I did originally, when I knew nothing of the Year without a Summer (1816) and Lake Geneva and telling scary stories while futilely hoping the rain might stop sometime before 1817.

Clearly, "for Lord Byron" does not refer to a homework assignment that Byron convinced Mary Shelley to do for him.

It was Byron's idea to have a creepy story writing competition. It seems unlikely that Shelley would have gone to all the trouble of writing a novel, and then credit it to Byron so that he could win the competition with her story. Besides, he wrote his own creepy story.

If she hated him, perhaps she wrote the novel as a strange way of expressing her feelings for Lord Byron.

Exactly. DD knows a lot about Byron, and also about the sort of weird triangle between Mary, her husband, and the aforementioned "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know" king of epic romantic British poetry.

This is a True/False question from hell.

So maybe phrasing it as "yes, true-- because they were Frenemies." I mean, if she were truly writing it "for" him even in an inspirational sense, then I'm pretty sure that we're now venturing waist-deep (at least) into a kind of dark erotic playground (after all, Percy Shelley was also not exactly tangentially involved in that summer in Geneva) that has very little place in conventional high school English instruction. Though, come to think of it, maybe my DD was thinking of it correctly in placing that in a sort of Black-quadrant, Homestuck kind of framework. I digress.



And Byron was a lot of things, but Plagiarist doesn't seem to top the list.

LOL.

You win a major award, Val--

I just can't figure out which emoticon is most appropriate for a discussion which includes ANYTHING about Byron.

High school class (career exploration, a graduation requirement) asks:

How do you want to live?


DD's every-snarky answer....

Like Charlie Sheen, I think.

'Atta girl.

She clarifies... You know I'm joking, right? I don't think that I have the STAMINA to pound drugs and alcohol like that... and I think it would be off-putting for the kinds of friends I'd like to have...

What was the answer to the Byron question? Even having done a bit of reading, I still don't know.

I mean, it was true in the sense that it was his idea to have a writing competition.

But it was false in that she didn't write it FOR him.

I'll PM you (it is technically a test question)...

Sounds familiar. My senior class received a short survey from the yearbook team, so our answers could be included with our yearbook pictures. One of the fields was for "Accomplishments." I'd won an award or three, had a significant role in the musical, etc., but I really didn't think that I wanted to be remembered as an obnoxious braggart by my classmates many years hence.

So... I have lived an empty life.

Months later, when yearbooks were sold, I received a lot of congratulations on this accomplishment.

I haven't posted in a while, just lurking occasionally, but was thrilled to see this thread so have to post!

DS's spelling tests now include not only spelling the word correctly but also placing it in the "appropriate" category. This week's categories were "People who do things" and "Words used to compare". One of the spelling words was "stranger". Which category does this fall in?

Well, according to the review sheet, the "correct" category is "people who do things"! This led to a most ridiculous discussion with ds about what exactly a stranger does. Clearly, in this situation "words used to compare" is the correct categorization. But no.

I really hate being put in the position of saying to him, yes clearly the answer they expect from you is wrong but if you answer the correct answer they will mark it as wrong. But it also seems kind of a petty thing to call up the teacher about. Sigh. Thanks for creating a thread that let's me vent about these things!

So... uh.... a "stranger" is a person who... lurks or poses a danger to others? Provokes fear?

Just trying to come up with some activities for the person to "do" things.

Just goes to show you that correct answers are frequently stranger than incorrect ones. Relatively speaking.

These are priceless.



DS's fourth grade math class is studying what I'd normally consider to be third or even second-grade material. Problem after problem stresses single-digit multiplication, with the children sometimes forced to draw a picture to "help" them arrive at the right answer. It seems to actually be demeaning for DS7. We asked for DS to take the end of fourth grade test, and the school agreed but is taking a while to grade the test now, likely because DS did well.

Anyway, for the end of section math test last week, I was careful to tell DS not to let his mind wander and to check every answer. He reported that he got all the answers right. Lo and behold, the test came home, and he'd been docked two points for giving a "wrong" answer. The word problem (one of the real toughies on the test) stated that a person could bike a mile in 4 minutes, and asked how many minutes it would take the person to bike 5 miles. DS answered "20", and got marked wrong.

Fool that I am, I decided to politely mention it to the teacher. I wanted to forestall a situation where DS is happily reported by someone at a meeting still to have some math to learn in that down-level class. I explained by email that there's a difference between calling for the unit in the answer and calling for just a number; that here he would have technically been wrong to include the unit in the answer, since "20 minutes minutes" is not a valid duration; and that a problem calling for units in the answer should leave it out in the question, instead asking "how long" or something similar.

The teacher replied that he had been marked wrong because he got the problem wrong, and that they were teaching children to include units in their answer all the time so they wouldn't ever forget them.

I responded that that was a faulty approach that would confuse at least some of the children someday, especially when they began dealing with combined units such as meters per second squared and the like in science classes. I told her it would be better to teach the students to recognize when it was correct to include the units in the answer, and when not, so that they'd actually understand why units are necessary and would learn to think about what unit was appropriate, instead of having it fed to them all the time. I ended by saying that I'd be happy enough if DS were given credit for all his right answers on his end of year test, and that we could follow up then. :|

I felt so much like "that parent", but I'd had enough. I told DS to always be careful to get the right answer, and not to ever change his answer when a teacher at his school told him differently. I finally told him that the way they approach math learning at his school and in the district is deeply flawed, though he's not to repeat that to anyone there, and that I'm doing my best to solve that problem for him. I also told him to refuse to do addition/subtraction math drills if his third grade teacher gives him any more (which also happened recently), and tell her to contact me. Had it!

If you are asked to list accomplishments and do so, a reasonable person would not call you a braggart. A braggart supplies such information without prompting.

Every person, and therefore every teacher, has his quirks. One reason I would be reluctant to homeschool is that being exposed to a variety of adults, each with different expectations, is good preparation for college and the workplace, where the quirks of professors and bosses will need to be handled. If the teacher wants "20 miles" when she asks "how many miles", I'd tell him to answer "20 miles".

Schooling is not just about learning but about credentialing (and day care/warehousing). Having an interesting and well-paying job in the future may require some conformism during the school years.

I disagree. That sort of conformism, to the quirks of a teacher who demands wrong answers and is stubborn when shown to be wrong, isn't necessary in order to get an interesting and well-paying job. It may be necessary to safeguard a perfect grade point average at all times, but I'd still rather at this stage that my son prize correctness and attention to detail over that sort of thing. He can decide later how he wants to address the situation when points actually matter to his long-term GPA. I can't teach him to bow to the petty whims of people who should know better, just because of some small measure of power they hold to harm one, but I can teach him to be polite but assertive and to follow up on all opportunities to demonstrate that he's right.

The way I solved that problem in the workplace is by finding positions where my skills and attention to detail were prized. I wouldn't put up for long with a boss insisting on being indisputably wrong, and demanding that I buy into it, just like I wouldn't put up with being undervalued in general.

I did get a B instead of a deserved A in one class in law school because of this insistence on correctness. My first evidence professor was just the sort of person who shouldn't be teaching anything to anyone: who can't admit when he or she is wrong, yet is wrong a lot of the time. Proving beyond dispute that I'd been incorrectly docked points on a major question on one exam finally resulted in a curt statement that my job was "not to learn the law, but to learn what he wanted in an answer, just like in real life". That's garbage, of course-- it might apply to salespeople, but not to a field where rightness fundamentally matters, and where some things are not debatable.

All that said, I tend to agree with you that learning to deal with teachers and the rules of a school is beneficial, and is a lack in homeschooling. I just don't agree with easily conforming to unreasonable behavior. Sometimes right is just right, and teachers especially ought to realize that.

At the university where my wife teaches, there's an appeals process that a student can invoke who feels that an incorrect grade has been given. Maybe I'd better shop around for such a feature when school hunting with DS. He's as much of a stickler as me.

Normally I agree with Bostonian's POV, but I would be really torqued about my child getting that problem wrong in that scenario. That's nuts.

It would especially be worth my time because Iucounu is trying to get his son advanced.

That said, DD has been marked wrong when clearly right a few times, and I have never contested it. It's third grade, and she has straight As; stakes are low. However, I do tell DD that she was right.

I thought of another one, btw; DD was recently marked wrong on a grammar sheet ("Correct the errors in the sentence") for using the serial comma.

This thread caught my eye today. My grade 3 son came home with a study sheet for an oral exam in his second language class. He is supposed to practice asking questions, and the sheet has 12 pictograms (with no text) representing the questions he is meant to practice. They all show a child with his/her hand raised, and a "thought bubble" to represent what they want to ask.

Well, a few are obvious (child with raised hand holding a pencil and thinking about a pencil sharpener), but most are a complete mystery to me (and DS).

Why is a boy thinking about a woman (head only, no distinguishing features) talking on the phone? The best we could come up with is maybe he wants to call his mom.

A girl is thinking about someone mopping the floor -- does she want to see the janitor, does she want to mop the floor, has she spilled something that needs to be cleaned up?

Or another boy is thinking about a woman (or possibly a girl) in front of a computer. Perhaps the school secretary, or perhaps not . . . perhaps he wants a turn at the computer?

I am sure there is supposed to be one right answer for each image - I just don't know what it is!

These were not homework problems, but DS caught these teacher mistakes last year, while in 4th grade:

* Teaching science: The sun doesn't move or rotate.
* Teaching math:
=> Teacher: A circle is made up of a lot of points
=> DS: Isn't it made up of an infinite number of points?
=> Teacher: It depends how big the circle is
=> DS: Stood there with his mouth open not knowing what to say

DD is still fuming 3 years later about how her 2nd grade teacher blew her off when she asked if constellations change over time.

DD is doing a new math curriculum this year with so many markers of being version 1. Everything's scored by computer, so you can't even write out your assumptions to clarify an ambigious problem. She encounters 2-3 a week, at least one of which she asks us to arbitrate.

In 3rd grade math, my DS6 had to estimate which weighs more: a full water bottle or a sleeping bag. Ok, terrible unanswerable question right?

Anyway, DS knew that my sleeping bag is lighter than a full nalgene (yes, per my name I'm an ultralight hiker) so that was his answer. He was marked wrong!

I never really "got" how beneficial following directions like this can be until a college course. The teacher had very specific expectations and she "fixed" grammar on our essay drafts by adding in many commas. So I learned to add in many commas, met her very strict deadlines, memorized everything she asked us to and did the work exactly as she wanted. I got an A in that class. She was actually an amazing teacher and I really loved that she had high standards and expectations. It was refreshing. At least one other girl fought against all the rules and failed the course. (I did something like that in 11th grade when I refused to do all the prep work and note cards for a big research paper. I failed.)

Learning that lesson about doing things the way someone wants them has helped me in other areas of my life. I'm not too proud to do it their way, even if they might have it wrong.


Edit to add:
I'm actually worried that if I homeschool my daughter she'll be deprived of learning how to handle the system. How to manage a stupid multiple choice test to get the best grade, how to interpret what a higher up wants from you and do it that way, and how to navigate the political stuff.

But letting her have more say in her own education is probably worth it...

W t h
I just read The Hare and the Pineapple. Everyone was on drugs when that was written and added to the test.

Just stumbled on this one again (I changed a few things very slightly so as to make the text this came from less identifiable--eg, it wasn't a library, but something else):

"Decide whether you need an exact amount or an estimate. 1) Distance from a library to a school. 2) Number of weekly visitors to the baseball stadium. 3) Temperature of a deep freezer."

Weeeeelll, that DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO WITH THE INFORMATION, doesn't it???

Y'think?

I'm laughing so hard at some of the oh-so-familiar responses to these questions, too. Ultramarina's one just above is one that made my DD throw her pencil on the floor and fold her arms over her chest in a disgusted slump in fifth grade. I still remember that obstinate look on her face.

Dd was sick last week. Her LA homework (maybe they did it in class, not sure) was to watch a video about Lance Armstrong and then write about perseverance. I assume (really hope) that the teacher addressed the latest news when she assigned this. I told dd to just pretend she wasn't aware of recent events when answering the questions or the assingment wouldn't make sense. Ironic that this was assigned, I believe, the day after the announcement last week.

I am cracking up at the other responses in this thread. I was thinking about the Hare and pineapple before I got to that sentence in the op. What is wrong with teachers? I would totally be giving extra credit to the kid who brought up Vietnam and Korean casualties in response to the Cold War (not to mention Latin America). But I also wouldn't have written the question he was responding too in that way.

I bet I will be able to add to this in the future--thankfully the Montessori school dd attended until 5th grade did not give me the opportunity to contribute much to this thread.

False dichotomy. This post assumes that conforming to expectations is always about abuse of power, and the nonconformist is always right. Sometimes there is no right or wrong, just different perspectives and/or priorities (see the post about commas above). Sometimes the subordinate is dead wrong.


Wait... did we stop talking about law between the first sentence and the second?

My parents were completely uninvolved with my education, and with that in mind, I just want to say: BRAVO!

The kind of thing you did for your son would have meant a lot to me growing up. I hope he appreciates it; if not now, then maybe later.

I respectfully disagree that it's a false dichotomy; see the words, "That sort of conformism...". You're right of course that I don't want to raise him to be completely stubborn and unable to take advice and direction from a teacher. I just want him to stick to his guns when he's indisputably right; I think that's a strength, and I'd hate for it to be broken just so a poor math teacher can feel that she's in the right.

Incidentally, I would probably get more cases if I were more of a salesperson. I do win almost all the cases I get, though.

Thank you. Emergency times call for emergency measures, and he has put up with a lot. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will wind up with a good math teacher before he goes off to college. We may be moving during this school year, and hopefully that will bring some much-needed changes-- indications from posts here are that smaller school systems can tend to be more flexible, and the new one would definitely be small.

Ugh, decided to mention the "stranger" question in a short email to the teacher. Here is her response:

"Thanks. Some students asked me the same question. When we were introducing the words, we did sort it in the people category, as the sheet suggested and I used the Stranger Danger as an example. DS sometimes does not focus and listen as he should. Please continue to encourage him in that area.

Umm, he knew he was supposed to put it into the people category. He just also knew that it didn't really make much sense. And I guess our definition of what strangers do is kidnap kids? Seems a bit extreme to me. I am not denying that he doesn't listen/focus at times, but I don't feel that was relevant here. Kind of annoyed that she pushed this off on a fault of his rather than addressing the problem with the question.

There's still a lot of nuance here. Sometimes we think we're indisputably right when, in fact, we're not. Sometimes nonconformity amounts to tilting at windmills. And again, sometimes we're indisputably right from our priorities and perspectives, but indisputably wrong from someone else's.

I agree that "stick to your guns" is a strength, but it's only a strength if you know how to pick your battles, and when to abandon the field to fight another day.

Sticking with the war metaphor, George Washington was not the tactical genius that Benedict Arnold was, but Washington knew when to fight (both politically and on the battlefield), and Arnold did not. The results speak for themselves.

Sure. I just didn't assume that conforming to expectations is always about abuse of power, and that a nonconformist is always right. I'm discussing specifically when one is 100% right and can prove it to any reasonable person, yet a person in authority is simply refusing to admit it out of pique. There is no real nuance, for example, to a teacher getting the wrong numeric part of an answer on a simple word problem during grading (implying failure to even check the answer key), the student getting it right and insisting on rightness, then the teacher reporting at a parent-teacher meeting that the student couldn't do word problems. (That actually happened to us, resulting in a daddy smackdown of said teacher, who retired suddenly soon after.) Or, perhaps, the nuance adheres when figuring just how far up her rump the teacher's noggin actually has been planted.

When a child is young and inexperienced like DS7, there is an easy solution: teach him to politely and persuasively argue to the teacher in favor of the right answer, and then appeal to a superior authority on the academic subject (me) if the teacher won't see reason. I can then also double-check to make sure he's in the right (he always has been so far). Eventually I expect his own ability to discern when it's a black-and-white or gray-area situation to develop further, as well as his ability to handle disagreements gracefully with all kinds of people, and I will help him grow in both respects.

Still, I want him to wind up with the ability to know when he's completely right and an adversary is completely wrong untarnished. He also should be able at some point to assess accurately when he won't win a particular battle at the initial stage or on appeal, as well as the likely outcomes of pushing a point regardless of that instead of bending. I won't be there to save him forever.

But still, right is often just right when it comes to math. The ability to be right with near-perfect or perfect accuracy is so valuable that I refuse to take even the risk of impairing it at this stage, just as I want him to have confidence in himself. The rest will come with time. And in extreme circumstances, sometimes a brave person just has to be ready to make a stand.

From our high-stakes STATE EXAM (ISTEP+ in Indiana) for 4th graders two years ago (it's a "released" question available on the internet, so I'm okay to post it, BTW)...

Kevin is using wooden rods to make picture frames. The length and width of one picture frame and the length of one wooden rod are shown below:

(diagram of a rectangle with dimensions of 10 inches and 8 inches marked, and a single wooden rod marked with a length of 48 inches)

1) What is the perimeter, inches, of the picture frame?
(straight forward -- no complaints there)

2) How many wooden rods does Kevin need if he makes 4 picture frames like the one above?

Well, the only answer they gave credit for was 3 -- perimeter x 4 divided by 48. However, I had several of my high ability students (who are always cautioned by me to NOT over-think questions on these tests because they understandably have the tendency to do so) give the answer of 16. Four picture frames...four sides in a rectangle...you need sixteen wooden rods.

And now MY compensation as a teacher in the state of Indiana is tied to the results of standardized tests written with questions like this?!?

They just changed it this year with the current edition, but 2011 was still a little too late to be having this question in a math textbook for elementary-aged kids who can't remember a time without call waiting and cell phones...

(Answer options are general probability terms of certain...impossible...likely...unlikely...etc.)

What is the probability of getting a busy signal while making a long-distance phone call?

What is the capital of Alaska?

Seems straight forward enough but when my DH as a third grader stood by his answer Juneau, my in laws were called in for an after school meeting to discuss his stubbornness. The teacher thought it was Willow.

I am completely confused. Are phone numbers more or less prone to busy signals if you're calling from outside a certain area?

What number am I calling here? Is it a government agency without a menu-driven system (not that they exist these days, but say, the IRS on April 14)? Or my sister when she's not home? The probability of a busy signal is very different for those two numbers in those two situations. It is not, as far as I'm aware, dependent on how far away I am from the phone I'm calling.

I am so not overthinking this one.

I think I would just write "Yes" to this question and move on.

Ok, a new one already! What a week we are having!

Bryan has three $60 bills. Which expression shows how much money he has?
A. 60/3
B. 60-3
C. 60+4
D. 60x4

??? First of all, where does Bryan live that he has $60 bills? Apparently, it is a world or dimension in which it is not necessary to actually include the correct answer in the multiple choice options. Sigh, I just told him to write in the correct answer.

Whoahhh... that one's a doozy in several ways, yes.

I think that the answer must be A.

It's obvious. This is a place with funny money. Why not funny math operations, too?

What the...??

And how many kids right on the brink of thinking they understand math have permanently given up that idea after reading this problem. What's the chance a teacher would discuss the flaw to improve kids confidence.

My favorite bit of advocacy:
Teacher: "Your child has been correcting me in class."
My Mom: "Well, were you wrong?"

I sort of hate to laugh, but I can't stop cracking up about the three $60 bills. $60 bills! How is this for real?

I wonder how many kids did the calculation you explained to arrive at 3, and how many checked to see whether or not you could actually cut 8 10" pieces and 8 8" pieces from 3 48" rods. It turns out you can (if you ignore losses due to the width of your saw blade and sanding... which would require you to use 4 rods in the real world). At least the question authors got that much right.

I was curious, and did it too-- 10 10 10 10 8, 10 10 10 10 8, 8 8 8 8 8 8. And I had the same thought about widths of the cuts.

I didn't worry about sanding or cut width, because in the real world, you wouldn't. This is a picture frame, not a sensitive scientific instrument. And if we assume that this is being done by a skilled worker with high-quality tools, the losses should be near enough to constant so that we still end up with a rectangle.

It's that waste at the end that I see as a problem in the real world. If you cut out the lengths you need, you'll have enough wood, but one side of one frame will consist of three waste pieces glued together. It's hideous and unprofessional.

It would be hideous. I think that's why DAD22 checked to make sure it could be done without joining scraps, which it can-- you just can't cut all the rods the same way.

Duh. 6 x 8 = 48. That's me told.

Ending up with a rectangle, and ending up with an 8" x 10" rectangle are not the same thing. My circular saw blade has about 1/8" kerf width. That's rather significant in my book.


I agree with you that this is the bigger concern. The main point of my post was that you actually CAN cut the rods into 8 8" pieces and 8 10" pieces, and you wont have to join leftover pieces together if you plan ahead. Iucounu already explicitly stated how to do this.

Don't sweat the kerf as long as it is less than the width of the rods. Presuming you are trying to use the minimum number of cuts and that the corners are 45 degree joins, you'll recover (n-1)*(width of rod)-kerf per rod (where n is number of sections being cut) by alternating cuts.

Nice catch, Zen Scanner.

My DH would want me to emphasize the point that DAD22 has made here-- there is a HUGE difference between framing carpentry (where presumably the kerf would be no big deal) and fine woodworking (cabinetmaking, etc). Generally frame making would fall into the latter category.



We really need to know whether or not these frames are going to be filled and painted. What kind of wood is this, hmmm? That might provide us with a clue. Pine or aspen is likely to just be painted, and there we might not care... walnut or some exotic hardwood might be more likely to be used with a translucent finish. The joinery would need to be far more exacting in the latter case.

What sort of saw is being used, anyway? Some Japanese saws produce a very tiny kerf, and are ideal for this sort of work.

Inquiring minds want to know.


PS-- was there any mention of swearing in the original problem? That's generally my clue that my spouse is working to more exacting standards. LOL.

Most picture frames are created from wood that is decorative, and asymmetric down the center line, though.

Right. We really need a visual of the materials, I think.

Until then, I'm going with "Not enough information."

This is why I assumed a high-quality worker and tools for the problem. A saw with a 1/8" kerf for frame making? LOL.

Even with the best saws, the kerf will be a non-zero number, as will any losses due to sanding, but they will be miniscule. Also miniscule will be offsetting gains from paint/lacquer, and space for the joint itself, because I'm assuming we're not using some form of molecular bonding.

If we assume that the frames are being made from a nice wood with translucent finish, then I doubt anyone is going to accept a frame that has pieces from two different boards. The grains wont even be close to matching at the corners. If that's the case, 4 frames requires 4 boards.


Since the question was posed to a child, instead of assuming a highly skilled craftsman with expensive tools, I assumed a child using their family's tools, making poor cuts that required significant sanding.

I am willing to bet that this actually meant to say "Bryan has three identical bills totalling $60," in which case the answer they want is A. Someone started changing the question, but didn't finish. Still ridiculous, of course.

Can I get some of those $60 bills? good stuff!

.... and many, MANY more boards.

Oh wait, I get this, I Have a bunch of bills, some of them ARE $60.

So I have -60.00*3 = -180.00 Right?

Hahahahahaha!! I love it.

The correct answer then would still not be option A, unless the question were also changed to ask which denomination of bills he had.

Yes, you're right - I didn't rewrite the whole question, because I was too lazy for that. I did say that they revised it halfway.

This is actually a skill that I developed over the years relating to standardized testing, possibly because my mother was a teacher and so I was exposed to a lot of test design theory over the years. When none of the answers are correct for what the test actually asks, the next step is to go back and think about what they might have meant to ask but not written down literally. If there is an answer that fits that, choose it and move on. It worked for me - generally I do very well on standardized multiple choice tests, even today.

I dunno. It's pretty close between A and D in my opinion, under the LFU analysis. B and C are obviously just wrong, going by the definition "Even a scallop should know better", unless one hypothesizes a typo substituting "-" for "X" in B.

Now I think C must actually be the answer, as it was obviously intended to wind up a trick or perhaps Zen-flavored question:

"How many roads must a person walk down, with three $60 bills in her pocket?"

"I have investigated that old woman! 60 + 4."

OK, DS just brought his test home and the question had been changed to "Dave has 4 $20 bills". Whew!

However, I had to laugh at this question and DS's answer because I can't tell if it was the intended response or not.

Sasha wants to make necklaces for her 3 friends. She needs 49 beads to make each necklace. Sasha has a new pack of 144 beads. She uses estimation to see if she has enough beads.
Sasha rounds the number of beads to 40 and multiplies by 3. Sasha decides that 144 beads would be enough to make necklaces for her friends. Is Sasha correct? Explain or show your answer.

I can't tell if the kids were supposed to challenge her estimation procedure or not. Because if you don't, then you would conclude that she does have enough beads since 3x40=120 which is less than 144. But DS said, no she's not correct because she should have rounded to 50 not 40 and then she would have realized she didn't have enough beads.

Clearly, the correct answer to the question, but I honestly can't tell if they intended the kids to figure that out (seems like kind of a trick question for 4th grade math) or if DS's answer just politely points out, "hey, you messed up the question again!"

OK, I'm in a bad-homework-question quandry at work.

I'm an English as a second language teacher at a junior high. Part of my job is helping content area teachers alter their materials to be more accessible for English language learners. I define the words in simpler terms, trying to lose as little meaning as possible (which is kind of a fun challenge, in a way).

Annnnnnnnnyway... this afternoon, I was work on the vocab for a seventh grade social studies class. Their political science unit includes the types of government, and includes the following:
*republic
*democracy
*oligarchy
*anarchy
*dictatorship
*monarchy
*COMMUNISM

BUT! Communism is not a type of government. You could have a communist dictatorship, a communist republic, a communist oligarchy... but COMMUNISM IS NOT A TYPE OF GOVERNMENT.

So. What's a first-year-in-this-building teacher to do? I'm supposed to work off the content area teachers' materials, and only adjust for comprehension purposes. Do I call out teachers on their content-area knowledge and/or accuracy? After all, I'm NOT a social studies teacher. They're the "experts" in that area; I'm theoretically just supposed to be helping with language acquisition stuff. I either have to create, teach, and assess material that contains an inaccuracy, or I have to battle coworkers with whom I need to work pretty closely for at least the next seven months (hopefully longer).

Interesting side note: I know that they used to teach that communism was not a type of government. I know, because I took seventh grade social studies at this school... actually, in the room in which I'm currently teaching ESL Literature and Writing. <--useless factoid

Well, I think that the obvious thing to do is to ask if "Capitalism" belongs on the list. You know, like you're concerned that it might have been left off. Er... or... something.


I'm sly like that, though.

Hmm... I was raised Upper Midwestern Catholic. If I do anything well, it's passive agressive.

ROFL

Seems to me that given specific quantity needs, the correct answer is that this is not an appropriate time to use estimation. 47 would also round to 50, but 3x47 < 144.

Bingo.

They're really obsessed with estimation and rounding in 3 and 4, aren't they? I don't quite follow why, given the clear limits of the technique, as seen above. (Then you have the previous Stupid Homework Question about estimates vs. exact amounts that I cited earlier in the thread.)

Anyway, I really would think that you are supposed to say that Sasha rounded wrong.

Then again, maybe they're trying to teach the kids something about using the right tool for the job. Because if she knows she's making exactly three necklaces, each requiring exactly 49 beads, and she has exactly 144 beads... why is Sasha estimating at all?

Good point, Zen! And I agree ultramarina, I don't know why they are so obsessed with rounding! I feel like it puts the cart before the horse. Once you are really comfortable with solving the actual problems, the rounding just becomes a sensible short cut that we use to save time. I've never felt like it makes sense to "teach" them how to round before teaching them how to calculate the actual problems since it is a less accurate approach. We have had multiple homework assignments in 2nd & 3rd where he was told to estimate the answer first and then find the actual answer second. He almost always does the calculation first and then goes back and does the rounding and I let him. When the actual calculation only takes a second for him to do, estimating does not seem useful to me (or him!).

And, I do hope that the answer they were looking for was that Sasha made a mistake. But I am just not sure because the similar question on the review sheet was just a straightforward estimation question. But who knows? At this point, I will give them the benefit of the doubt, especially since there were no $60 bills on the test!

Or, an appropriate rule of thumb would be: given specific quantity needs, always round up, even if it's further to round up than down. Then, if you come up short, you may have a problem, and should do a more precise calculation. If you don't come up short, you know you're okay.

Somehow I doubt that's what the question-writer had in mind.

Dude: That goes to my point about the obsession with estimation. Trust me-- you're not supposed to say that she shouldn't be estimating. I've seen a lot of these dumb problems.

LNE: Yep, my DD does the same thing. She just solves the actual problem. It's easy enough.

Yup. What ultramarina said. You are not supposed to point out the many ways in which estimation is inappropriate or problematic. Ever.

Even when the answer is patently foolish in light of the more accurate answer, saying so is verboten.

DD hated those estimation problems. The entire concept was ridiculous to her.

Not homework but classwork ...

From someone at College Confidential http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14975348-post85.html

"I am not claiming to have any special ability, but when I was in the third grade in a small school in Hellhole, Texas, I received a similar assignment to the one Gauss received and came up with a similar solution in a couple of minutes. But when I showed my teacher my solution in Hellhole, she screamed at me and called me lazy and told me to do it the long way like the other children. If Gauss had grown up in a place like Hellhole, it's quite possible we would never have heard of him."

Gauss was given the problem of computing

1 + 2 + ... + 100

and figured out that it equals 50 * (1 + 100) = 5050.

The correct answer is "always round up and then see if you can return or sell the inevitable leftovers." <--says the woman with far too many single skeins of yarn because of this very tendency, and then a tendency to never get around to returning or selling stuff.

I still remember in fourth grade having to do a worksheet on True/False statement. One of the statements was something along the line of the moon givesoff light at night" to which I answered "False". The teacher marked it wrong and I got into an all out argument with the teacher regarding the fact that the moon has no energy source of its own and therefore does NOT give off light but, instead, reflects the light from the sun.

Another question on the same assignment showed two drawings of a desk. One was messy, with papers and books strewn all over it while the other was neat and organized with everything in nice plies. The statement was something along the lines of "These two desks look different." I again answered "False" and again had to argue with the teacher because the desks themselves were actually identical, it was only the placement of the surrounding oblects that had changed, so, no, the DESKS did NOT look different.

Even in college Algebra I had a debate with the T.A. for our Algebra class that if she wanted to see a pecific equation in response to a problem that she should say so. Otherwise, I felt that my diagrams, sketches and scribbles should have been sufficient evidence of "Showing your work", especially since I got the correct answer. We also had a little cdebate about what the purpose of mathematics should be, reciting memorized formulas or using logic and higher level thinking skills to understand the nature of a given problem and finding a way to solve it. We got along pretty well after that but her subsequent tests all stated "Please show your equations."

Ok, here's one from my grade 10 gym (which included sex ed), since you guys are making me think about all kinds of auful things...

"If a couple has sex, but the man withdraws before any emission occurs, can pregnancy occur?"

"correct" answere was "yes"

That word, I do not think it means what you think it means...

Re: estimation. I would answer that she rounded wrong, but would have caught her error if she had observed the small margin of errorr and followed up with a more exact calculation, as is appropriate when rounding.

LA sheet.

"Negative prefixes Im- and Il-

Choose the correct prefix for each of the word definitions below.

Not mortal
Not patient
Not perfect
Not legal
Not regular"


"Mama??"

:facepalm:

Oh, clearly the last one is supposed to be ABNORMAL.

Maybe it's "illogical" instead, since that is more in keeping with the worksheet's overall gestalt.


Then again, that gets back to "imperfect" since the primary meaning isn't exactly the same.

We're all now enjoying referring to things as "imregular."

*snort*

Two this week!

Science review worksheet: "All amphibians have four legs..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caecilian

I guess a tadpole isn't an amphibian until it's all grown up.

DD brought home a worksheet with pictures to measure. She had to round to the nearest inch, half-inch, and quarter-inch.

The first object was exactly 2 3/4 inches long. She rounded up to three for the nearest inch, up to three for the nearest half-inch, and wrote 2 3/4 for the nearest quarter-inch.

She got the half-inch part wrong. Apparently she should have rounded down to 2 1/2 inches, as the sheet meant HALF inch literally. Full inches don't count. If it had been exactly 3 inches, she should have presumably rounded to either 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 inches. (???)

AUGH!!!

Some of these you can kind of see what the teacher was trying to get at, or where they went wrong, or why they were struggling with the wording. But this . . . this is just breathtaking.

Good gracious. The 1/2 inch thing is so wrong that it might actually be useful in advocacy.

I don't see myself tolerating this, although I can't immediately think of a productive way to bring this up with the teacher.

Are you a long-lost sibling of mine? That is precisely my mother!

I still have tears in my eyes from the $60 bills. Too funny!

I'm debating this week whether to start something with DS's new teacher -- he was just accelerated to some 6th grade classes at the quarter break, and I don't know this teacher well enough to know if she would take criticism well or if she would take it out on him.

He brought home a rough draft of a paper for Veterans Day, and she had marked some things to correct for the final draft. She wants "holiday" capitalized throughout. She wants him to add something about "who served valiantly" and she spelled it "valiently". And she wants his apostrophe moved in "Veterans' Day" (how he wrote it) to "Veteran's Day". While I tend to agree with his placement myself, the official holiday (not Holiday) does not have an apostrophe in either location. So we had a talk about the merits of doing what the teacher asks in order to get a better grade while knowing in your heart that you're right, versus explaining to the teacher that what she wants is incorrect and possibly facing problems in the future. I've seen his final draft, which he hasn't turned in yet, and he spelled valiantly correctly, did not capitalize holiday, and put an apostrophe where she wanted it in the title. Two out of three ain't bad.

Show your work

Exactly. I have no idea how to bring up this idea without making a big mess.

Wait...the president of France banned homework altogether? Why can't we do that?

In his last math test (with $20 bills not $60 bills, fortunately!) DS "solved" his issue with the show your work/how do you know parts by drawing elaborate pictures of the scenarios in the questions (he even drew a small zoo!). It made me laugh but seemed to satisfy the teacher because it was his first 100% on a test.

My favorite from that test goes something like this: 2378 is <, >, or = to 2338
How do you know?

Me (in my head): How do you know? Umm, because 2378 is more than 2338? I mean, it just is, right? What a stupid question! Ugh
Me (to DS): I guess write something about the tens place?

Seriously, though, regarding the 48/8 question: it seems a bit contradictory to spend a significant amount of time teaching kids to do multiplication/division facts to automaticity and THEN ask them to show their work. Isn't the whole point of the drilling to get them to be able to answer the question without any "work"?

DS8 replies to those requests with "because I know my math facts". I was blaming the ASD, but maybe it is only a being 8 issue?

Don't worry, it was a suggestion and it will never actually happen.

When I was a child we found out that the equivalent of the department of education had forbidden homework for the elementary grades. Somehow none of the teachers at my school had gotten the memo, and our attempts at protests were not met with approval...

I completely banned homework as a kid. It became schoolwork aka things to do in other classes which, like the person talking in the front of the class, would also contribute very little to my learning. At least that way I could kill two birds and do my own thing at home. Nowadays with agendas and parent signatures, etc. I doubt this coping mechanism is available.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable response to me!

Did you take your books home to maintain the appearance that you did homework at home? I did that for a long time, but eventually I left them at school and found out that my dad didn't even notice.

Ugh... well, it isn't really a "homework" question... but my daughter's American Government textbook has a hefty sprinkling of mispellings.

While this isn't so bad, ordinarily, one might expect that such a textbook would NOT, generally, have trouble with "Barak" Obama's name. And yes, it isn't just an "alternate" spelling-- because it's random, according to my disgusted DD.

:facepalm:

That was awesome.

Today I taught my daughter how to do her first basic algebra word problems. I decided to do this because she's always coming home with word problems like the following:


My daughter solved it by subtracting 4 from 60, dividing 56 by 2, and adding 4 to the result. Great. Richie has 32 so Howie must have 28. That's all well and good, but the method breaks down for harder problems:


Err...well, I can't just subtract something, and I also get a remainder if I divide 65 by 3, so that method gets kind of messy. And of course, it'll get even more complex if I add more people and more fruit. So I taught her how to solve the first problem by using algebra:

• Howie has x bananas
• Richie has x+4 bananas
• Together they have x+x+4 = 60
• Solve in steps

This was not an easy process for her (see that thread about struggling). But after a while, she became completely focused and the ideas started sinking in. She never focuses like that on the stuff that comes home from school. She was also delighted when she solved a problem by herself. I'm planning to practice this every day for 30 minutes or so, and by the end of this week, she's going to be pretty good at this stuff.

Narrowly-functional approaches that break down outside a small zone really bug me about contemporary mathematics education. Personally, I wonder if these approaches actually send a message that answers should be derived using arithmetic and guesswork. This mindset may make it harder for kids to see that there's a structured way to solve math problems.

Yet another bad question shows up:

Envision a figure showing four types of pizza sold in one month: 10 anchovy, 70 mushroom, etc. The figure tells you how many of each pizza were sold. This is the sum total of information given.

1. What was the total number of pizzas sold in the month? Answer = 320. Okay, fine.

2. What was the median number of pizzas sold in the month?

DD just brought home a giant packet of graded work (happens every few weeks). They are doing multidigit multiplication problems, which she is finding easy. Worksheet after worksheet of what basically adds up to 465 x 56 (some are word problems). Except they like to throw in one per page like this:

X county has 5,678 citizens. Y county has about 8 times as many citizens as X county. About how many people live in Y county?

DD (who just did 15 other problems along the lines of "What is 3676 x 14?"): 45,424 citizens.

WRONG!

(The answer is 48,000 citizens, of course. "ABOUT how many people." Get it? Yeah, I almost feel like they put these in just to ding the kids who are zipping through.)

There must have been 4 worksheets like this; every problem was straight-ahead nonestimation multiplication except for one or two questions where they threw in an "about." DD got every single "about" one wrong, having done the actual problem (correctly). Now, I get that reading carefully is important. But meh.

The bigger problem here is the author's incorrect assumption that only citizens live in a place.

Even setting that aside, if they're going to teach estimation, they should at least teach it responsibly. Rounding is only helpful if you're rounding to a useful degree of precision. In this case, it's far more useful to round up to 5700 than to 6000.

I mean, yeah, I could just round up all my monthly bills to the nearest hundred instead of the nearest tens. That'd sure make budgeting for movie night a lot more exciting.

In what universe is the more accurate answer wrong? Reading carefully so that you see the word "about" doesn't make the answer *wrong*. If they want the kids to practice estimation, they should say "use estimation." But even then it's unclear what would be the "right" answer. Estimating can be to varying degrees of precision. 45,600 would be a reasonable estimate.

Sheesh, I swear this stuff comes from some Bizarro Totalitarian Alternate Reality, where "words mean what I say they do, because I'm in charge."

The detailed answer was wrong because of significant figures: when multiplying, your answer can only have as many significant figures as the least accurate number you start with. So when the problem said "about 8" it was throwing out ONE significant figure. Ergo, the answer cannot include more than ONE significant figure.

This means that the math book was also wrong. The correct answer is 50,000. 5,678*8=45,424. You round up to 50,000, which has only one significant figure (the 5).

And I have no idea where "48,000" came from (please tell me it was a typo). Did they just pull that out of the air? ETA: Oh, I get it now. They rounded FIRST, and then multiplied, and failed to account for sig. figs. This is painful. The rule is: multiply first with whatever you have, then round. Ouch. This really hurts.

I wouldn't expect someone learning multiplication to understand significant figures. But the people who wrote the book should, and they should have specified the necessary information, such as "round to the nearest x." You still have to read the problem to get that information and yet putting it there also removes the need to guess.



Agreed.

"About" is such a culturally and context-specific word as to be virtually meaningless wihout further elaboration.

My dad was a fighter pilot, and I'm reminded of a story he told me about a German-born colleague describing his commute to work in the event of an emergency call. (I think I was fuming at a "wrong" answer like the one described!) The Canadians all rounded transit time to the nearest 5 minutes, while the German pilot said something like, "The trip takes me approximately 11 minutes and 40 seconds in average conditions." In an emergency, that precision would be valuable!

To be fair: I don't actually know for sure what the expected answer was, because the teacher did not write it in. (Yay! She never does.) It could be 50,000. However, based on oodles of prior experience AND the fact that she was not told what to round to, I am pretty darn sure the answer was 48,000. Yes, I TOTALLY AGREE that this doesn't make any sense.

I should collect the other 5 problems like this she got wrong on otherwise completely perfect math papers.

Yes, DS has missed a significant number (ha) of math problems lately involving rounding and the casual use of the word "about". I tied myself in knots trying to figure out what was wrong with his answers when he brought home papers marked wrong, and everything I could see was right! Finally I checked the book to see what he was supposed to be doing, and discovered we were estimating. To the nearest god knows what, because "about" is not helpful.

I would have estimated your problem at 45,600 myself. Although, with the "citizens" question, and depending on where these counties are located, and what time of year it is, it's probably more like 100,000. But only 253 of them vote.

I can't actually post any of these because they are assessment items, but SHEEEEEEESH....

my daughter's AP Physics class is using assessment practices from somewhere hot and sulfurous, I'm pretty sure.

This is the third exam in a row where she's had about 40% problems which are completely novel-- not just novel in terms of the particulars, which I'd be totally okay with, but novel in terms of the conceptual APPROACH to the problems, as well. As in, they've never seen anything like it, had no instruction in how to approach a problem like it, and there are NO examples in their course or text to support solving them. They have to remember material from three or four units back, (or from a previous course, even), and SYNTHESIZE it with new material, in order to have any hope of solving the problems.

Oh-- and they have to make a bunch of assumptions. But not others, obviously. Because making those assumptions would be wrong. Only the ones intended are the correct assumptions. Apparently.

(Seriously, DH and I have both looked these exams over in the context of the course instruction and frankly, most college sophomores would be sinking under these expectations.)

It's completely surreal. She really knows the material well, can explain it well, can do the math well, can set problems up, etc... but she's routinely earning ~70% on these exams. Yikes.

Oh-- and just to make it more interesting, many of the problems include the multiple choice "trickster" answers which are basically "gotchas" for arithmetic/algebraic errors, and occasionally they throw in an answer which IS completely correct... but only if you define the coordinate system in an unconventional manner. Which, (drumroll please)... yes, that's right, my out-of-the-box kid has a penchant for. DH and I are both trying to figure out how they can omit telling students HOW to conventionally define things... but then PUNISH them for not figuring this out themselves, evidently.

:head. desk:

Actually I missed the "about" before the "8." I only saw the second "about." (Ha! I fail the careful-reading test!) But I still think the significant digits analysis is too precise for the word "about." "About 8" could mean "somewhere between 7 and 9." Or it could mean "somewhere between 7.99 and 8.01." It all depends on your definition of "about." I still think the most correct answer is to do the exact calculation -- this is your least biased estimate of the real (unknown) value.

The mathematically correct answer (admittedly a bit absurd on its face) is to use one significant digit and round accordingly; I'm quite sure of this. But I also think that the correct 50,000 answer and the discussion we're all having here is math's way of saying, "You shouldn't do this calculation with only 1 significant figure. Go back and get another one to tack onto that 8, and then your answer will start making sense."

I suspect that the people who wrote the problem didn't have the slightest clue about what they were doing. And of course, with so many problems as bad as this one floating around, it's no wonder that so many American kids bomb out when they get to algebra.

I've read some reasonable-sounding criticisms of AP Physics; here's one on a blog called Quantum Progress.

From what I've read, people are questioning the content of AP classes. Many criticisms center on the idea that many or most AP classes are too superficial. This was certainly the case with the AP history class my son enrolled in and then dropped. It raced through almost 400 years of American history in 29 weeks. My understanding is that all AP US history courses cover this much material (some better than others). AP Physics (especially AP Physics B) has had some heavy criticisms in that regard.

As a counterpoint, I have an IB Physics textbook (author: Tsokos). It's 800 pages long and covers 8 main topics in 470 pages and some optional topics in the remaining pages. I've been surprised at the depth the book goes into. There's some really good stuff there. This is due, I think, to the fact that the course is designed to be taught over two years, rather than one.

Oh, the College Board has finally reformed AP Physics B, but the new classes won't start until 2014.

Yup. She's using Giancoli's Physics. Which is larded up with math-math-math and example-example-example, but is VERY light on conceptual instruction. Ergo, the expectation that students can examine 20 worked examples of quite specific problem-solving using Newton's laws of motion, have a single hour of direct instruction...

and then tackle several synthesis problems --without using any notes or calculator-- that also throw in unusual units and forces them to derive conversion factors on the EXAM...

would be... oh, what's the word? Laughable? No, diabolical, I think.

It's good to hear that it isn't just us. Personally, I think that what I've seen of the AP coursework so far supports the notion that these classes were "too hard" and so now they've gone the route of substituting quality for quantity (more! more! more!) in the same sleight of hand that has been featured in things like Race to Nowhere.

It's maddening. We didn't cover some of this stuff in my year-long COLLEGE course. No, instead we covered about 2/3rds of this-- but in considerably more detail. In that course, some of these questions would have been fair. Of course, I don't recall being asked to do what my high schooler is being asked to do until...


well, my qualifying exams in analytical chemistry as a graduate student, quite frankly.

That's how crazily out of whack the assessments are seeming.

This is a known problem in physics. Students can crank through problems and yet largely fail to understand concepts. Have you every heard of Force Concept Inventory? It's a wonderful tool for assessing conceptual understanding of forces in Physics.


I seriously do NOT understand this approach. I started to write "What were they thinking?" but I suspect that the answer is "They probably weren't." Or maybe it's that whole "make-merit-through-overwork" idea.

Well, you're right about how to calculate significant figures. But the idea of significant figures itself is merely a notational convention, not a mathematical truth.

Think about it: for a number like 5,000 to always be "more correct" under conditions of uncertainty than, say, 5,136 -- purely in virtue of its having all those zeros -- would have to mean that there was something magical about numbers that happen to end in zeros in base-10 notation.

The purpose of using numbers with all those zeros is merely to signal to others something about the precision of the estimate. It does not make the number a better estimate. It does not make the answer more correct.

But the fact that we can get into a friendly argument about this at such a high level of abstraction just shows how pedagogically absurd the question is for that age-group!

Yes, exactly!

That's the way I read it. In week one he jogs 2 miles/day, in week 2 he jogs 3.5 miles/day, in week 3 he jogs 5 miles/day, etc, and the question is in which week he'll reach 8 miles/day.

So I'd write out the initial expression as 2 + 1.5(x - 1) = y, and solve from there.

If atmospheric pressure CHANGES, then what happens to the absolute pressure at the bottom of a pool?

a) it is unchanged
b) it increases, but by a smaller amount
c) it increases by the same amount
d) it increases by a larger amount


:thud-thud-thud:

DD had to call the teacher about this one.

"Pretty sure that Pascal's Principle is what they're asking about here... but... uhhhhhh... I just don't think that DECREASES in atmospheric pressure are going to result in increases in pressure at any depth within the fluid."

Because if you plug in your values, when x = 1, y = 3.5. The extra 1.5 miles doesn't get added until week 2.

Actually seems to me he is ramping is schedule each week.

So first week for each of the seven days he his jogging 2 miles
2nd week each day he jogs 3.5
3rd is 5
4th is 6.5
and 5th is 8

y = x*1.5 + 2

edited to say: funny how start typing something and get distracted submit and there are three or four responses in between

Also, I'd say that finding the Y intercept in this question is pretty strange, because in this case, X can only be a positive integer.

It would make sense for this problem that the Y intercept is when X = 0, because he's not running yet. But if you try to graph the following values, you'll see that the result is not a linear equation:

X | Y
-------
0 | 0
1 | 2
2 | 3.5
3 | 5
4 | 6.5
5 | 8

I would be shocked if the answer were not Y = 1.5X + 2. The y-intercept has to be 2 if you want to model the situation as a linear relationship. Because of the wording in the first sentence of the problem, I just assumed that the increase is 1.5 miles each week even though he jogs every day.

I think that it's great that your DD is giving it so much thought and considering all the possibilities - it's the hallmark of a strong mathematical mind.

I also think that once your DD receive more exposure to how many problems in science/social studies are modeled with the x-axis representing time but X=0 not the beginnng of time, it will make more sense. I guess I have always found it helpful to think of X=0 as the point before the change since the slope is meant to model the rate of change. For example, X=0 can be the year 1945 if you are plotting economic data regarding the increase in housing construction post WWII.

Sigh. Just looked at DS's science test on physical vs chemical changes. There were 15 questions, he had 5 marked as incorrect. Here is the first:

Intro: Read about each physical or chemical change in matter. Answer each question.
1. You crumple a paper bag into a ball.
What change happened? DS answered physical. INCORRECT
Is the bag still a bag? YES
Is this a physical or chemical change? DS answered physical. CORRECT

Why is the first answer incorrect and the third correct? Because he was supposed to infer, apparently, what the teacher meant to ask (describe what the paper bag looks like now, or something like that) rather than what she actually asked, which he correctly answered. He missed two more for exactly the same reasons.
It gets better. The other two he missed had to do with the second question in the series, like this.
A metal toy is left in a puddle of water and it rusts.
Is the metal still a metal? He said yes. INCORRECT
Is this a physical or a chemical change? He said chemical. CORRECT
So he knows that rusting is a chemical change, but (and I haven't had the energy to ask him about this yet) my guess is that he answered yes to the other question because he is picturing a toy that has not completely turned to rust and therefore the metal part that remains is still metal. I find the question as written to be rather nonsensical and confusing.

Now I am again in a dilemma about whether to discuss this with the teacher or not. It is 3rd grade so I am not overly concerned about the grade itself, but I AM concerned about how DS is supposed to figure out when he is answering questions correctly or incorrectly when it appears to be quite arbitrary in many instances.

For me, the larger problem with questions like the ones you described are that they encourage muddled thinking and require that kids make unjustified assumptions. If a question is much worse than the usual bad ones, I might bring it to the teacher's attention, but my usual tactic is to go over the flaws in the question and teach my kids how to recognize them.

Last night DD had a probability question: There were five numbers in a bag (0-4), and three were picked and not replaced. Zero wasn't picked. What was the probability of picking a 2 on the next turn?

DD was flustered because she'd removed the 2 in our mockup of the problem. But she wasn't sure what to think. "Should I put back the 2???" I explained that it was a bad question and asked her to think about different possible scenarios. She ended up understanding that because the question didn't specify whether or not the 2 had been picked, there were two possible scenarios: it had been picked, and the probability was therefore zero, or it hadn't, and the probability was therefore
one-half.

I hope that these lessons will ultimately do her a lot of good by teaching her to recognize bogosity. I don't know if I've helped you; it's really not an easy question.

I think the key point is that it is 3rd grade. We have found that teachers in elementary school often do not know the correct answers. Perhaps they once knew and have forgotten. Or perhaps they were just sloppy about forming the questions.

Much earlier on this thread I shared examples from our son's 4th grade teacher: "The sun doesn't move, or rotate", and "Q: Isn't a circle made up of an infinite number of points? A: It depends how big the circle is".

Given that it is elementary school, and that the teachers are not specialized, I would say to let it go. Our approach was to tell our son that he was right, and that not everything that is wrong is worth correcting in a discussion or argument. On the other hand, if this was in high school, where the stakes are higher, it might be a different matter.

Interesting, my take is I have a 50% chance of getting the known: 0. And a 50% chance of picking the unknown, and the unknown has a 25% chance of being 2. So .5 X .25 = 12.5% of picking 2. If that is the answer they want, it's a good problem.

You can get at it from the pick/not picked approach. Then you have to calculate the given x selections the probability of not picking a particular. Set aside 0. First pick 3/4 of not being 2. Second is 2/3 chance of not. Third is 1/2 chance of not. 1/2 * 3/4 * 2/3 = 1/4 (the same as simply picking 2 as the excluded number pick.)

So 25% of the time it's not picked. In that scenario, you have a 50% chance of picking 2. Which is 12.5%.
As noted the not picked case is 0%. So the total probability is still 12.5%.

Thanks val and mithawk, honestly I would prefer NOT to bring it up to the teacher because the last time I said something she did not react well (see my earlier posts about the categorization of the word stranger as something someone does).

My concern is that, although no grade was put on the test, he is a perfectionist and internalizes these grades as his own failure ("I'm bad at science"). We are working on this separately, but incidents like this don't help at all.

I think I have been avoiding undermining the teacher's authority by telling him that the questions are poorly written and that he is in fact correct. But I guess I am going to have to do that, though, in order for him to feel secure in his own abilities, which is ultimately more important.

It was a fourth grade math problem. So they meant "2" literally and weren't interested in what you might call subtleties. Though personally, I like your insight.

I see this point; it's important, because you (well, me too) don't want to give the child the impression that it's okay to be disrespectful of the teacher. I let my daughter write corrects answers (e.g. as in the probability problem), but I also tell her that it's only a few problems out of dozens and that not every teacher can catch every mistake. Maybe we even missed one and just barreled through it! I think there are ways to address it carefully. I had this same conversation with my older son last year. He's much more likely to be brusque, but he got the idea, too.

The way I see it, there's more to it than just confidence in his abilities. There's also the ability to think critically, which is vital. As our kids encounter these situations, if they're taught not to question the content because it comes from an authority, the problem is with them, then critical thinking goes right out the window.

These bad questions are paddle creatures, slapping kids in the face whenever they start thinking, and the result is we're raising a nation of vogons.

This is also something that separates the good teachers from the bad, because I had a number of teachers who openly recognized when the material had something wrong with it. It was not uncommon, for instance, for a teacher to announce the answers to a couple of bad test questions.

Except that the problem clearly stated they wanted X to equal the week number, and Y to equal the number of miles run. The function y = 1.5x + 2 does not describe that relationship.

The linear equation y = 2 + 1.5(x - 1) does have a Y intercept of 0.5, so that's probably the answer the teacher is looking for. It's just that, in the context of the question, it's nonsensical.

We are raising a nation of Vogons. Ugh.

One of my favorites:

True or false: 2 + X = 3

(No other information was given)

I'll bite. Was the answer "true"?

not if x = 5

A friend suggested that the answer is "Yes" because the statement is true-or-false.

Along those lines, here's a question on DD's homework today:

"Jenny wrote a fraction. The numerator was 7. The denominator was more than the numerator. What was the fraction?"

Ooo-ooo! I know this one.

The fraction is... ≠ 1, or more properly the absolute value of this fraction is > 1, since it didn't really specify that the number was both positive AND larger in value than the numerator.

Heheh.




DD hates those "yes" true-or-false questions. She can go around and around with them, eventually just melting down over the sheer stupidity of it all.

Yes, I have decided to discuss the "bad questions" more directly with DS rather than address the issue with the teacher (especially since I can't think of a way to bring it up with her in a way that would not make her feel defensive!) From now on my approach will be to make such questions a learning experience if possible.

On a positive note: it turns out that sheet was not the actual science test but a practice. He brought home his test today with a 100%. Main difference: it was open answered where the kids were able to write out and explain their answers. So, since he actually did understand the concepts he did much better with this format rather than the previous one where he had to second guess what the teacher was thinking.

List three ways by which the parents of a child who fell in a frozen lake in winter can prevent further heat loss.


-If it were a frozen lake, it'd be ice... so you can't fall into it unless you break the ice.
- The parents of the child can prevent further heat loss by going inside near the heater and leaving the child to drown.

One of the questions K students are supposed to answer for a project:

"Where were you at?"

Ah, took me a bit to figure out the perceived issue. The general rule is you do not include the preposition if it is superfluous to the meaning.

So, is there a reason that the "at" may not be superfluous? It seems one looseness in language leads to the need for specificity elsewhere. "Where were you?" is often treated as if it says "What were you doing?"

I ask: "Where were you?"
I could get:
"Working on the car."
or
"In the garage."

I ask: "Where were you at?"
I would expect only to get:
"In the garage."

Well since the question right before it is "What did you do?" I think the offending question was just looking for location. So I'd say it's a case of bad grammar. But it may be one of those things you could argue varies by region or subculture. (Remember those "Where you at? " commercials?)

Find the misplaced modifier in the following sentence:

Me and my friend took a ride in the car named Jimmy.

Keep in mind that this is 6th grade GT ENGLISH and the teacher has made it her mission to teach grammar.

Well, it looks fine to me. Is this a remake of the movie 'Christine,' by any chance? I'd probably need to see the next sentence to find out if "Jimmy" developed angry or jealous feelings toward the friend or not.


DD adds that it needs to read that "My friend and I" went for a ride, anyway. But beyond that, it sounds like a great start to an interesting story.


DD was complaining recently about a similarly egregious usage error in an AP Lit assignment. So I'm sad to say that it doesn't necessarily get better.

Jimmy is in fact the official name of the GMC S-15 SUV.

It was the "me and my friend" that the kids objected to. The teacher's response was that another teacher made the worksheet.

Another example is" Mary wears a pair of socks. This teacher says socks is the direct object. As in Mary wears socks and "a pair" modifies socks. Experts? Is this true? DD is not confident in this teacher.

And "She is older than me" is correct rather than "She is older than I". (Internet search says this is controversial)

True, but that's the model name, not a proper name. We don't say, "the car named Taurus," for example. It's just "a Taurus."

Some people do name their cars, though, so I suppose that part of the sentence is still not 100% incorrect.

NO NO NO. "pair" is the DO. "of socks" is a prepositional phrase modifying "pair."

If it were "Mary wears socks" socks would be the DO.


"older than I" is the traditionally correct usage; the other is so widespread that it is now accepted by many.

But how totally obnoxious to have a teacher like this...

DeeDee

I agree with Dee Dee, pair is the DO and of socks modifies it.

We had a GMC Jimmy. He preferred to be addressed as James unless you were a close friend.

I really like this thread:

1/ I am glad it is not only me who looks blankly at questions wondering whether the really know what they mean.

2/ I would assume that a professional person would want their mistakes tactfully brought to their attention so they could correct them. I am now thinking I am way off beam on this.

My kids are too young for daft homework questions yet - although some of the phonic worksheets are a bit odd but I'm sure I'll have some contributions soon.

How about this as an excuse for bad homework questions?
"I know it's a bad question, but I put it on there because that's what you find on standardized tests and I want you to do well"

Glad to know the teacher is looking out for the kids! (sarcasm dripping)

Oh, yes. We're familiar with this brand of "logic." (shaking my head)

From my undergrad course:

"What types of evidence are there to suggest..."

The answer is a list of data points.

ARRRRRRGHGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHHG.

In looking at this week's school schedule, apparently my DD13 will be taking a quiz in AP Physics today.

Yup.


The "Captors in Circuits" quiz is a part of today's physics class.

Wow. I had no idea that electrons could be personified to this extent.

Is it incarceration? Or more playful? I need to be sure that we have the right idea. We wouldn't want to wrongly dismiss the anguish of the electrons if they've been victimized. Are capacitors acting as internment camps for the electrons?

I had no idea...I feel so bad that I'd never truly considered the plight of the electrons. Maybe we should view resistors as behaving something like TSA checkpoints.

From test prep materials for the LA statewide assessment test for 3rd graders (iLEAP):

Pete has 32 books. He puts an equal number of books on each of the 4 shelves of his bookcase. Which expression shows how Pete can find the number of books on each shelf?

A) 4 / 32
B) 32 x 4
C) 32 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4
D) 32 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4

The only clue to solving this riddle is provided in the following text in the answer key:

Match to GLE: This item measures GLE 6: Recognize and model division as separating quantities into equal subsets (fair shares) or as repeated subtraction.

When directed to the correct answer, DD's response was smarter than the state's: "But Dad, thirty-two minus four eight times is zero!" Apparently this is one of those things where they're teaching what they call number sense, and DD identified how it lacks common sense.

Silly me. I was hoping there was a typo in choice A.

I did too at first! lol

We had a real problem with this last year. My husband and I would correct the questions and send them back the next day. When our son would have a correct answer marked incorrect, I would correct the correction and send it back in, too. :X I'm sure the TA thought I was insane, but she never argued and always returned the homework a second time with the mistakes fixed.

In my daughter's AP Literature course:


The assignment is to "create a test," which is fine, so far as it goes...



Ironic.

Yes, deeply.... ironic.

Because...

They provide them a tutorial on Bloom's Taxonomy, and require a variety of different levels of test questions...



The deeply ironic part is that the people who are nominally in CHARGE of assessment practices for my daughter's school-- and another member here can vouch for me, as he was IN on that conference phone call at the time-- claim to have a way to make multiple choice assessment measure these things. Of course, they also claim not to understand what is meant by "higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy," so I guess I can't be too terribly surprised.

Just wondering what sort of personal experience students are to draw from in completion of this assignment, since few of them have ever SEEN what I'd call a "well-constructed" assessment with that kind of coverage in this school.



I'm probably overthinking it.

Ouch. That one hurts.

Well, it sure would if it were true, anyway.



Unfortunately, ignorance is rarely painful for those most profoundly afflicted... only for those most profoundly impacted by it. Too bad.

This explains why air fare is so cheap, because airplanes are powered by wishes.

Forget fracking. Clearly, the key to achieving energy independence and reduced carbon emissions is to develop a method of hurtling daily commuters through the air safely.

Not a homework question per se, but DD8's class is reading "Number the Stars," historical fiction set in 1943 Denmark, and said that according to her teacher, World War II began in 1942.

This is one of her gifted teachers.

Since I just happen to be on volume 6 of Churchill's pseudo-autobiographical account of the entire war, it didn't take much convincing for DD to take my word over the teacher's.

Oh my. And so early in the year, too.


To be clear, I do NOT mean the year 1942.

Well, if her teacher was Brazilian. Or Mexican...

Day 2.

Which of these families has a "healthy" dynamic?




DD: Uhhh... is it just me, or is the second family, like.... WAY screwed up?? It seems deeply dysfunctional-- maybe even abusive-- to tie approval and love to performance that way. WOW. I mean, I can't say for sure that the first family isn't being obnoxious, either-- it sort of depends on the individual children and the context of the conversation. I mean, supposing that the daughter has a weekly chore list and that dishes AND sweeping are both on it, kinda reasonable... the son, well, supposing that the grade that isn't an A is a surprise to them both... uhhhh, "what went wrong here" seems pretty legit.

Clearly this isn't the interpretation that the high school course is looking for. But "building self-esteem" isn't about dishing a non-stop stream of praise, either. DD knows it.

She also-- though she's frequently HEARD things like the first two stanzas-- knows that our love for her has NOTHING to do with her performance. Ever.

She said "I think it'll be interesting to see whether the happy and content children still have mom and dad supporting them continuously once they leave home...because it seems pretty clear that THOSE kids need a continuous IV of praise to maintain their self-esteem, and that they're being conditioned to feel worthy of love only on the basis of accomplishment, much of which may not even reflect authentic achievement. What kind of person feels proud of getting an "A" in a class that they can SLEEP through, anyway?"

LOL.

Ugh... ugh... ugh...

The fun continues in AP Stats, which is looking more flea-ridden every day. I know that the AP syllabus is a dog. That we expected.

What I did not fully anticipate is that the textbook is never referred to in the "lessons" that the students are asked to complete. And further, that assessments are based not on the LESSONS, but-- evidently-- on the odd random sentence or term from the textbook.

???

BEYOND bizarre.

So the first lessons goes on and on about the (false) dichotomies of quantitative/qualitative, discrete/continuous, etc. etc.

THEN spends half an hour on a scattered video featuring a colorful cast of thousands in kaleidoscopic sound bites, apparently toward the end of explaining how one constructs a
"proper" histogram (much was made of the selection of "categories" and how not to have data fall on the edges of same, how to divide them into the proper five-paragraph essay formulaic 12-category histogram... )

only to have the lesson's assessment (all 3 questions of it) refer to...



terminology including "ordinal" (hardly touched upon in said lesson) and a question which asks for a stemplot.

It could not possibly be any more clear that whoever wrote that assessment paid NO attention whatsoever to the overall emphasis in this lesson, ignored the fact that students are (nowhere-- and I do mean nowhere) directed to any reading at all in said textbook, and that furthermore, this particular question (30% of the assessment and the ONLY non-multiple choice item) covers (seemingly) 1/2 pg of some 50 pages of reading that I suspect are associated with this first lesson.



Sure. Always a good idea to include 30% "WTH??" in assessment. Nothing like letting students KNOW that you have no intention of actually supporting and guiding their learning in the subject, and that assessments are going to be "gotcha" moments of punishment.


This particular question is metaphorically SO far out of left field, and so peculiar that I have to think that "stemplot" is an error and that they actually intended to say "histogram." Lovely.

I'd sure like to see how her teacher reacts to that assessment of the two families! Fly on the wall time.

DS had a page of definitions to do for Social Studies, and one of them (and the lack of another) made me say to myself, "it's gonna be an interesting year!"

Democracy, now, is apparently "government in which power is held by the people and exercised either directly or through representation usually determined by elections."

Republics, now, apparently do not exist at all. Which, I suppose, looking at our country today, should not come as a surprise to me.

It's funny because I spent my senior year government class getting the same question wrong on every test because my teacher insisted on a similar incorrect definition and wanted it written on every test, along with the preamble to the Constitution. I wrote "Mr. L's definition of democracy: ..." and "True definition of democracy: ... " and he didn't like that, for some reason.

Kid's only in 7th grade. This could take a while.

I remember speaking privately to my grade 11 civics teacher (who was also my favourite teacher, as he taught economics) about the importance of providing equal class time to discuss each of the major political parties in Canada. To his credit, he changed his tune after I spoke with him, and his political stripe was later undetectable in class.

Oh...bias!

HK, that poem made me throw up a little in my mouth.

DD's 4th grade science was a page about hypothesis, theory, and conclusion, etc.

There was a "think about it" type question that asked if a group of scientists are working as a team it is important for everyone on the team to have the same ideas. It then asked if that was a true or false statement and why. DD9 answered false because not everyone has the same ideas and it is better for the scientists to have different ideas in order to make each other think and come to the best conclusion. She got 2 check marks against her for that answer and I believe a 60% for the paper (it also had some other simple vocab questions she got right).

1. I think she gave a good answer that makes sense
2. I think it sounds like more of an opinion question than a right or wrong question

If everyone on the team has the same ideas, there is no point in having the team. The rest of them should go do something else and stop wasting time.

Your DD's teacher gets an "F" in knowing how science works.

Insufficient information to judge the merits of the question + score. The quick assumption is that she was marked off for not answering they should have the same ideas. What if she was marked off for not explaining enough or for not drawing a full set of concepts from the lesson to support her assertion? Or if that is literally the answer, she mentioned conclusion but did not mention hypothesis or theory; the rubric could be that simple.

Like:
It is better to have different ideas. Because those ideas are the input theories to the scientific process they will pursue together. The theories then inform a set of hypotheses to test. They test the hypotheses, and the one who had the idea most matching the conclusion has to buy the first round.

Again insufficient information to know, but it is one plausible explanation for the grading.

Did you know that "paying for jails" is one of the key functions of the judicial system?

Also, did you know that one can read a sentence in isolation and categorically decide whether it needs a period or an exclamation point? DH and I were cracking each other up coming up with scenarios in which ALL the sentences that "needed" a period (eg, "It's the one on the left") could need an exclamation point.

"It's the one on the LEFT! No, NO! NOT the one on the right! THE BUTTON ON THE RIGHT WILL START A THERMONUCLEAR WAR!!"

Thank you for brightening my day :-)

That poem is crap and I completely agree with your dd. WTH is that poem doing in any kind of high school class, let alone an advanced one?

Same class that had this gem on last week's work:


Because it's an assessment item, I can't post the answer. {ahem} If anyone wants to know the "correct" answer, give me a PM.

DD got it wrong. But didn't want to bother arguing the issue over a single point. This class is a graduation requirement. Yes, it's fluff. And, being unweighted, it will reduce her GPA, which is like salt in the wound. It's mostly an irritation, however, and DD often can figure out what they INTEND for the right answers to be-- whether or not they have any basis in fact/reality is another matter.

Most of the "course content" reads an awful lot like propaganda, according to DD.

Head---> desk

Was there an "E -- all of the above" option? I believe I would have made one, myself. If you're going to miss it, miss it with style.



Paying for jails -- yes. That's where all of those extra fines and fees come in.

Okay so this was an assessment question not a homework question. And my problem is not the question per se but that my DS was marked wrong for it b/c apparently his answer didn't fit the specific formula.

Here it is: "Write a comparing story. Draw a model that matches the story. Write a number sentence that solves the story."

DS wrote as an answer: "There are 70 lego pieces in a lego set. A set of legos containing 80 pieces comes in the mail. How many more legos are in the new set? 70+10=80 "

It was marked wrong and she was wrote in red "'comparing' means subtraction sentence. Or at least explain that the missing part is 10." Then she told me on the phone that DS didn't understand the the difference between the two sets is 10.

Now I am not confident at all in MY math abilities. Seriously. Even at this level LOL. But it seems to me that he not only did what the question asked but he also understood quite clearly the difference in the amounts between the two sets is 10, No? Am I missing something?

Oh and this nonsense with the "drawing" I am so sick of it - is this art class or math class? He flat out refuses to draw (and since he does have a writing disability, I really do not blame him!"

Maybe he should have answered with a Schrodinger equation-- after all, he doesn't KNOW how many legos are in the box until he opens it and counts them. Just that it is an integer value.


LOL.

He said 70+10=80, so obviously he knows that 80-70=10. If the teacher really, truly believes that your DS "didn't understand the the difference between the two sets is 10" then basically she's hallucinating.

This is a case where "show your work" has become an extremely pedantic ritual with an educational value that is significantly less than zero.

I see a middle ground here on the Legos question. Obviously the boy knew the difference was 10, so the teacher was just being dumb there. However, when he translated the problem into mathematical language, he did not write the correct expression.

Hmmm I guess this where my lack of math ability comes in but. I didn't realize you could only compare by subtraction.

When I was a kid back on the Stone Age, it was common to get mental tests where you just has to give the answer correctly.

What is the sum of a and b meant ADD them
What is the difference meant Subtract
What is the product meant Multiply
What is the quotient meant Divide

I think that is the meaning of 'difference' there, Irene.

Yes i was taught the same but the problem itself didnt say "difference" - it said write a story comparing two amounts ...

Clearly, the teacher doesn't understand the math. He wrote "how many more", and, really, "+10" is a perfectly reasonable example of that. It's ten more. But the teacher thinks "=80" is the answer, because it "=", and therefore he must be wrong.

Given that circumstance, myself, I would tend toward a kneejerk response of writing every answer in all their possible stupid ways. 70+10=80. 80-10=70. 80-70=10. That way, I'd be certain to hit on the right one at some point.

On the other hand, my response as a student might be to give up entirely.

And I'm so with you on the drawing thing. I kept asking that repeatedly when DS was in the lower grades -- is this math or art? He refused to draw all his addition and subtraction problems, too. DD now in 2nd grade likes to draw, so she can be found drawing pictures of everything even when they don't ask for it. It drives me to distraction when I'm walking her through her homework and she keeps stopping to draw pictures of apples and stuff. Gah!

sweet mother of cheese this kills me, too. they taught DD5 to do that last year in Pre-K, and for stuff she can CLEARLY do in her head in two seconds, she's literally drawing detailed robots and things. i kind of wish she was still in school, so that they could reap the full horror of what they've sown.

and re: 70+10=80... seriously? WHY then do they drone on and on about Fact Families if they don't want kids to USE THEM. (bangs head on desk)

LOL

Okay we figured out - when asked by Envision to write a "joining story" that means they want an addition sentence ; when asked to write a "comparing story" that is trigger phrase for "subtraction sentence."

At least we know the rule now!

{insert rude remarks about "joining" rabbits being the explanation for the assertion that multiplication is "repeated" addition.}

So, I found a reference...
http://www.teachertipster.com/CGI_problem_types.pdf

It shows three types of comparing problems. It shows when the difference is unknown, then addition or subtraction is a viable way to illustrate.

Thank you Zen!!! Believe it or not, this answer was going to keep my DS out of the differentiation math group they are starting. She called me to tell me that she's going to let him anyway because she does think he needs it even though he really shouldn't be in the group b/c he answered this question on the pre-test wrongly. She was making it sound like he really shouldn't be in the group b/c he did not under stand the "deeper" concepts that this problem is designed to highlight. (I just vomited a little in mouth I think). So that pdf will come in very handy!

Oh and if she calls multiplication "repeated addition" one more time...

GRRRRRR

LOL

Thanks for that link Zen Scanner, I have been meaning to search for a list of all the ways you might be asked to do each kind of problem using words, that will be a helpful start along the way.

Someone on this board mentioned a while ago that their school drills the kids on "these terms mean you add, these terms mean you divide, etc". My aspie DD could really use some explicit instruction in this translation. Sentence types she's seen before she convert, but she struggles with drawing inferences at the best of time, and with sequencing, so can get terribly muddled.

I must admit I have a problem with word problems. Yes they are real life but it seems like a strange place to start. My son had a sheet of four fraction problems the other day. The first three problems (word problems) he got fine despite there being words in them we don't use in NZ. The fourth was basically what is 6 as a fraction of 24. Easy if you know your 4 times table but ds6 got so lost is all the excess verbiage and unfamiliar words he put 4/6 as in 4 people 6 things each. Yes it was a valid and useful problem (you have 24 things and each person needs 6 how many can you serve) but why not teach it after multiplication is taught. The are starting multiplication with problems like 3+3+3=. Eventually they will say that is also 3*3. I think we will learn times tables over the christmas/summer break.

oops sorry! Shouldn't have used my iPhone my watching DD's soccer practice to grab sometime forum time otherwise I'd have seen that - where is the forehead smacking emoticon?

I'll write you a comparing story! I compare this stupid terminology to a piece of...never mind.

Here is another supporting reference from Annenberg Learner:
http://www.learner.org/courses/learningmath/number/pdfs/session4/a_s_1.pdf (Page 43 "compare problems" section).
I sent both to the teacher I am sure she loves me already!

He could have demonstrated it by writing...

70+ ? = 80
70 + 10 = 80
80 is 10 more than 70.

Well, it was the last question on a test so i imagine he was running out of steam. And if they had asked for a "fact family" i can assure you he would have written it that way. also the kids were specifically not taught these problems because it was a "pre-test" for a differientaton group.

But thanks anyway - there are obviously a number of ways he could have written it - doesn't change the fact that he way he did write it and solve it was correct and should not have been marked wrong.

Yup.

I am sorry I didn't finish my thought up above...I totally got that the first line he did in his head...and the last line in my example would be the conclusion that anyone can plainly see from 70 + 10 = 80. He compared one side of the equation to the other and made it equal. Perfectly fine answer to me mathematically.

So, I sent the chart Zen linked and annerberg textbook excerpt that I found to the teacher. She emailed me saying "thanks," "very helpful" and that she'll "share it with her team." DH and I were laughing think 'wait, you have a "team" on this and still didn't get it right?' LOL. She said she would call me to discuss DS's answer. I know I am a bit of troublemaker but I wrote the following:

"No worries. I had just wanted to make sure that he and I understand exactly what he is supposed to do in "comparing problems" and when I researched it, that's what we found. Looks to me like if the problem wanted, as an answer, a "difference" and a "subtraction" sentence, it should have asked for that and it should have instructed the student to write a "separating story" rather than a "comparing story." However, the instructions read, "Write a comparing story....Write a number sentence that solves the story." And DS certainly did exactly that. I am more than confident that he has displayed the requisite understanding on a "deeper level." As for the drawing part, I have no concern about that - he has been able solve problems like that for years easily in his head. The requirement that he "draw" is redundant and does not cause me any concern in the least as it is math class not art class and, due to his disability, drawing takes up too much time and mental energy. By the way, to give you perhaps more assurance of DS's problem solving skills - he recently scored a 121 on the Woodcock Johnson Test of Achievement Applied Problems, which correlates to a grade equivalent of 4.4. I think it is so sad that a problem like this could have held him back but I am very grateful that you didn't let it! "

I know it's a bit bitchy (and petty with me throwing in a test score) in a way but like my co-worker was saying - it seems like every year someone tells the teacher that DS is smart (me or DS) in order to make things better and easier and appropriate... and what it does instead is triggers the teacher to embark on a mission to prove to us that he really isn't as smart as we think he is when I hear the exact opposite from testers and mathnasium and see the exact opposite! Teacher spent 20 minutes using this stupid problem (that she got wrong!) to tell me on the phone that she is concerned DS does not have a "true" "deeper" "understanding" of math concepts and problem solving. I didn't have the test at the time yet so I couldn't argue or discuss really and just was a bit skeptical and said 'well okay but I find this surprising given what I have and others have seen.' I am not saying he is mensa, or Einstein but he is above this level and he needs SOME differentiation! And she says this stuff to him too "DS, I know you think you know this stuff but ...." She's bought into this Envision program hook line and sinker too. She keeps saying how this program takes the kids to a deeper/higher level of understand

Ugh ugh ugh.

You can compare many ways, but that's not the question. The question reads, "How many more legos are in the new set?" That's clearly a subtraction problem.

Dude see attached chart and annerberg link. Whether you agree with the chart or not, it lays it out very clearly. If the problem wanted, as an answer, a "difference" and a "subtraction" sentence, it should have asked for that and it should have instructed the student to write a "separating story" rather than a "comparing story." However, the instructions read, "Write a comparing story....Write a number sentence that solves the story." The very problem and answer DS gave as his answer is in chart as correct and a model answer!

To write a "number sentence that solves the story," it would be necessary to express it in the form of OPERATION = SOLUTION. That's not what your son presented.

Whether you call it a "separating story," a "comparing story," or a bedtime story, the solution is still 10, so it's just semantics.

Um okay whatever. I am not the one who calls it a comparing story 'they' are and I am not the one who makes up the rules 'they' are and according to 'their' textbooks and charts, he did it correctly. According to their teaching materials, if if the problem wanted, as an answer, a "difference" and a "subtraction" sentence, it should have asked for that and it should have instructed the student to write a "separating story" rather than a "comparing story." However, the instructions read, "Write a comparing story....Write a number sentence that solves the story." In comparing stories you write this type of problem (I take this right from their materials): "Mr. Smith had 5 cookies. Suzy had 3 cookies. How many more cookies did
Mr. Smith have than Suzy?" And, according to their chart and text book, you can solve it either with subtraction or addition. Specifically, they give us these answers as model answers to the problem: "5 - 3 = __ or 3 + __ = 5" The very problem and answer DS gave as his answer looks just like the model addition answer.

Really, it's not rocket science.

From the "Annenberg Learner Teacher Resources and Professional Development Across the Curriculum:"


Apparently, my DS not only understands this concept but he seems to have a better understanding than some adults. Because, so far, it's adults ()one being his own teacher and her team) who can not seem to wrap their head around why "2+1=3" is a perfectly good answer for "Example problem: Ahmed has two brothers. Christine has three brothers. Christine has how many more brothers than Ahmed?" Despite the fact that it is clearly laid out as such in every single internet resource that I have looked at (I am only linking two but I looked at several more!) addressing the issue!

Actually the teacher didn't even know you could use either addition or subtraction in comparing problems (where the difference is unknown, that is). "Joining" problems are addition; "separating" problems are subtraction; and "comparing" problems you can use either (like I said before, these are not my rules, just what the teaching text says). She told him "you can only use subtraction in comparing problems." I think it is actually a matter of her not really knowing the material she is suppose to be teaching. [As the Annenberg text says "Compare problems involve a comparison of two distinct, unconnected sets. Like the part-part-whole problems, compare problems do not involve action. A relationship of difference, more than, or less than is found in compare problems. Where the difference is unknown, either subtraction sentence or an addition sentence is correct. Example problem: Ahmed has two brothers. Christine has three brothers. Christine has how many more brothers than Ahmed? Example Answers:
3-2=1 or 2+1=3"]

Yes, it simply depends on which is the basis for comparison. "How many more" is using the smaller as the basis for the comparison, therefore "small plus blank equals large".

"How many fewer" would be comparing based on the larger, therefore "large minus small equals blank" or "large minus blank equals small".

Yes, exactly, thank you! That is exactly (well, almost exactly, you say it a bit more clearly and succinctly), what the texts and teaching materials say.

I wonder if she will have to re-grade all of the tests due to this? It was an assessment and a pre-test to get into the differentiated instruction. This question and one other one were THE questions for the differentiated instruction group.

Ohhhhh yes ... this sounds an awful lot like what she keeps saying. She has said to me several times this very statement, "this new curriculum wants the students to actually understand what they are doing on a deep level." Inwardly I groan and roll my eyes b/c honestly I am perplexed - how "deep" can you go with 80-70 is 10? Seriously. And it's only double digit b/c my son made it double digit ... usually she is harping on and on about "going deeper" on problems that are essentially 8-2 or something... Honestly, it's like brainwashing or something b/c when I respond with 'uh really' she just keeps repeating the "deeper level" stuff.... It's like she went ot one of marketing things people make their salespeople go to ...

I THOUGHT "comparing" was a very strange term to use for subtraction, even in fakey jargon world.

Me too.

Irena I don't think that Dude is arguing with you on the ways the question could be solved - but that the two parts of your sons answer do not match. Your son says "How many more legos are in the new set?" the answer to HIS sentence must be 10, your son is the one that formed a sentence to which the correct answer is subtraction not addition. Dude's problem is NOT directly with what the teacher asked, or the teacher's understanding, but with the internal consistency of your son's answer.

All this pedantic, rule-based, mechanical procedure for processing "word problems" is something you could program a machine to do. It wouldn't need to understand a thing.

This "deeper understanding" stuff is distilled kool-aid.

He's 7... he did the work and understands the math... to say he did not score high enough for math differentiation because of word semantics in his writing choices for a DYSGRAPHIC 7yr old is just beyond ridiculous. Makes me so sad to see a little child treated to such an unbelievably incorrect standard. I'm glad he's going to get to move ahead but I see the teacher holding this as a trump card in her back pocket that he does not *really* belong there.

Yes.

Indeed.

Ergo, my notion to introduce Schrodinger's Lego Set.

So you're saying, then, that some sort of device, some sort of "calculating" device, could be contrived, in which one could, say, enter numbers and types of operations, and it would somehow extrude the answers?

Witchcraft, I say!

This.

Your son's answer (70 + 10 = 80) does express the relationships, so he clearly understands them. But it does not answer the question at hand. This expression answers a different question that was not asked:

"There are 70 lego pieces in a lego set. A new set comes in the mail with 10 more pieces than the old set. How many legos are in the new set?"

This would be an addition operation, using the two inputs provided, to produce a different solution.

And here's a great example of why it matters:


Such a machine would be hopelessly dumb, so you'd have to walk it through, step by step, every process. If you didn't clearly identify what the inputs are and what to do with the output, as a major IT engineering company often says in its tech notes, results are unpredictable.

cracking up at Nautigal

No. That's not what I was saying.

:P

LOL - thanks for the laughs!

So, teacher emailed and said she agreed he should be given credit for his story and addition sentence... but he can't get an "A" because he didn't do the drawing (they call it "modeling"). I am okay with that even though the "modeling" nonsense makes me crazy. Technically the test question asked for it and he didn't do it so ... She said specifically regarding the "modeling," "In math class, we are trying to ensure a deep understanding of all math concepts. At the primary level what might seem insignificant is actually an important cornerstone for future mathematical understandings. Modeling is one way that students can demonstrate this understanding." Uh okay... lets keep drawing squares and circles ad naseum in math class then to ensure that "deep understanding"... They have no idea how moronic they sound?

Oh and no apology for taking twenty minutes of my time to explain to me how DS does not really understand math problems only to find out that she is the one who apparenlty didn't quite understand the concept of "joining" "comparing" and "seperating" word problems.

I mean, really, if you are going to call a parent and essentially say "I know you think your son is advanced in this area; however, he is not only not-advanced but has actually has a deficit in understanding" you'd better make sure you know what the heck you're talking about first!

But that's okay, I am easy-going LOL

Here is some of the latest math I've seen and sorry to say - I don't get it! Good thing it doesn't ask to "explain" how you got your answers.

It is a "Practice Page" with 4 sections. Each section has the following instructions followed by about 15 simple multiplication problems like 7X8, 9X3, 5X9, 8X3, etc.
1. Pretend to Add with 9 and Count 5, 6, 7, 8
2. Pretend to Add with 9 and Think of 7X7
3. Pretend to Add with 9 and STRETCH
4. Pretend to Add with 9 and see 2 4's

Talk about confusing! I'm not a math genius by any means, but this just looks too complicated and how will kids remember all these tricks anyway (even if they can make sense of it). I think we will just do the problems and call it good!

"Pretend??"


SERIOUSLY??

I am pretending to add 16+9. Shoot, I added them. This is harder than it sounds. I will try again with 28+9 and I will not think about the answer. Rats, I thought of the answer again. I know! I will pretend to add x + 9. There. I can do that. I am now pretending to add.

[pretend, pretend]



I am still pretending to add x + 9 and I am now thinking about 7X7.


I was working hard there, so I just STRETCHED my arm and back muscles. That was good advice!

I am SO glad that I don't have to pretend that my DD is not in that class LOL

My first impression was that this is totally bizarre, but actually I now think this jargon refers to various tricks for calculating these products, so the students should know what jargon refers to. (Ask your kid.)

Google "finger multiplication" for an example of such tricks.

I don't even have to pretend that this makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm sure it refers to some sort of tricks, but it doesn't ring any bells for me.

LMAO ... seriously... you just can't make this stuff up!

She forgot a step: pretend you're learning math.

Well, you can't very well pretend THAT.

Nobody's imagination is that good, is it?

I had started another thread on math/writing one's work. Things have been smoother since DS was accelerated another year in math. However, yesterday, I found a note on returned homework next to a word problem that required multipling something like 6x72. "X, you must communicate how you arrived at the answer."

The work, of course, was in his head. Sigh.

On the plus side, most of the work is indeed more challenging and he's less inclined to fuss over coming up with the required text...

Yes, I get the same notes for the same type of problems, i.e., "DS had trouble explaining in words how he arrived at 5 + 7 =12." (SECOND GRADE mind you!) I get annoyed because I feel like they are trying to say DS really does not understand "5+7" and that drives me bonkers! I get insulted for DS and tend to feel like they are questioning DS ability or building a case that he's 'really not understanding what he is doing.' Last year's teacher sort-of did that last year to me in meeting so I am not entirely a paranoid delusional. However, maybe it is something that is not really as personal as it sometimes feels - they really just do this to everyone? I think I may get the notes less now that they have the achievement math problems score and his formal id as gifted (Oh and maybe also since the last time it was done it turned out the teacher was the one "lacking the deeper understanding.") Not sure we'll see.

DD said right away..."ooooo-- Mom, number 2 is a badly worded question. Ugh."

WOW, wonder if they'll give me credit for any answer I choose, here? Since, you know, it just asks which one I would choose... how can I possibly get that wrong? My CHOICE, I mean. Shouldn't they want to know which one a student SHOULD choose??

I was told my ds couldn't explain how he got his answer and it was one reason they didn't want, at first, to subject accelerate him in math. He can learn to explain how he gets his answer in 4th grade math or 3rd grade math...but put him where he needs to be and then teach him that skill.

But I always wonder...are they wanting you to explain how and why you set up your problem or how you actually did the computation or both?

"using the strategy of drawing a diagram, I drew a diagram, labeled the parts and determined that I needed to add all the sides to find out how much fencing I needed. It was a square lawn and all the sides were equal so I used multiplication 6feet times 4sides to find that I needed 24 feet because 6x4=24 and I know that 6 x 4 = 24 because I passed my math minutes for all my times tables and I got an ice cream sundae for doing it. If I hadn't passed my math minutes I might just use the method of skip counting or repeated addition and would still be sitting here waiting on that ice cream sundae reward. Or because this is math class here is the real answer in a more mathematically concise manner that needs no additional explanation and should be considered the true answer by any real mathematician:

P of a square = 4 x s
4 x 6 ft = 24 ft


All of my explain my answers would have an element of snark in them.

Hmm. She wrote "communicate" how he got the answer, so he could write, "I did it in my head." Yesterday DD9 had to communicate how she arrived at the answer to something like 88,645/17 and she wrote, "I did long division." We will see how that works out.

But more seriously, I think that many teachers actually believe that this stuff is important. They've probably been taught that students who don't know why 6*12=72 are less likely to get required scores on standardized tests. Or something like that. Remember that many (most?) of them don't really understand mathematics past a very basic level (for examples, see this article or this summary of Liping Ma's book).

If your child's teacher is insisting on showing things that seem obvious to you or your child, it may be because these concepts aren't or weren't obvious to the teacher. It may be that this teacher is anxious about teaching math and is following what's prescribed to the letter because s/he lacks knowledge about the subject.

I'm only explaining here, not excusing. Teachers are adults and know that the cure for math ignorance is to learn more math. Worse, people have known about this problem for years (decades?) and the school and teacher training systems haven't addressed it.

I love it! Must show DS, although he's got enough snark already (gets it from his mother).

I keep meaning to ask someone, when they want this "show your work" stuff for addition, "how exactly do YOU show your work when you add 7 + 5?" Do they, for example, draw seven apples and then draw 5 apples under them, and number them in order? Or do they simply know that 7+5=12? Ok, so if it's ok for YOU to just know the answer because you know your math facts, why isn't it ok for the kid to know it the same way, and move on?

I did notice that she wrote "communicate" and that gives me hope! At a minimum, he could write it out as a problem. Ex. 6x72=432 (and show where he carried) Or, we can try "did it in my head." She does seem far better at getting where he is at than the last teacher.

You bring up a great point about how much individual teachers know/don't know about a subject.

They really need to rephrase their prompts; so, that they aren't requiring children to lie to satisfy the requirements of the question:
"How did you arrive at that answer?" --> requires lie
"Show your work" --> requires lie
"Explain how you got this answer" --> requires lie
"Using the rhetorical methodologies repeated day in and day out in class, describe a method to arrive at the same answer you have using buzzwords from page 23-27 of the textbook" --> ding ding

Dear Teacher, if you are going to only teach my child one thing, please don't make it "how to lie."

Irena-- I think this is a PERFECT opportunity to use his slow processing speed to support why it is inappropriate to expect him to do this in any fluid, reliable way. Pemberley had posted a link to some articles on this recently and your post brought to mind this quote :


A kid with a lower than average processing speed score would often find it impossible to retrieve and express this additional information for his math calculations no matter what he knows. ... If we ever return to traditional school I plan to bring this point up.

"Which graphical display would you choose?"

Requires a lie if the student's perceptions here don't match the answer choices given.

Options:

A) Just being the snarky lady that I am, I would teach my son some basic neuroscience and have him draw a detailed diagram of synapses with an accompanying brain-based explanation. If the teachers are giving pap, the least they can do is accept a reasonable scientific explanation for the process of solving the questions.

B) Either that or craft a stream of consciousness story about the voices in my head competing for my attention with their respective answers. There would be creepy biblical references laced throughout.

C) Or write a long, detailed explanation in pig latin. Or Heiroglyphics.

D) Wildly inappropriate picture counters--drug paraphernalia, typically concealed body parts, adult "playthings".

Of course, this might not be a good way to get administrators on side, but it amused me to think about.

{claps hands}

OOo-- I choose E) all of the above!

If you can't join 'em, beat 'em!

"I drew a magazine with seven bullets and then put five more into it. I have twelve bullets, but I still have room for three more rounds plus one in the chamber."

Ha ha. Not.

You do realize that this is the sort of thing that gets children and adults arrested and put on all sorts of terrorism watch lists? And that the guvmint can ask tell the folks running this site to give them your personal information, as in, NOW?

Sorry, not even remotely funny given school and other assorted shootings.

Signed,

Someone whose kid's school was in lockdown due to a mass murderer on the loose in the immediate neighborhood (3 dead bodies and 7 wounded; he was killed a couple blocks away). Another lockdown occurred because some idiot made precisely the same threats you just joked about at a teacher in the preschool.


!!

Val one wonders how much the panic over "Showing your work" for the most basic concepts (5+7=12) is not just because many teachers don't really get it, but because those teachers that don't get it are getting the message from above (thanks to Liping Ma, etc) that they must teach / provide profound understanding and they've got not freaking idea how to assess if the child HAS a profound understanding...

Sigh.

ironically enough I have concluded that what my 7yr old really needs is memorisation practice, but that is so not cool here... She GETS the meaning of 7+5=12 but for goodness sake I just need her to memories it so she can move on with the higher math that she ALSO understands perfectly well but can't execute accurately without reliable math facts... But no, they are all bogged down in proving their profound understanding of the concept....

True. One must understand something before one can teach it.

It's interesting...I used to teach at a local skating rink on Saturdays. They let me teach up to a certain level based on the fact that I was roughly 4 levels (out of 18 total) above the highest level I taught. I could show people how to do the stuff in those other 4 levels, but wasn't really good at those skills yet, and I also didn't yet understand how skill x would be needed later on. They only wanted me to teach the levels where I had that knowledge. This seemed perfectly reasonable to me. It would be unthinkable to ask me to teach a certain jump if I wasn't really, really good not only at it, but at the subsequent jumps that build on the skills you gain in that jump. I mean, this is obvious, right?

I'm amazed that schools don't take this same approach. As in, you don't ask someone to teach fractions unless s/he is really skilled at manipulating them in Algebra 2.

What is BEYOND ironic is that on some level, there is some understanding of this concept.

For example:

to be a math tutor at DD's school (meaning, you help students with math in CC course 3 through geometry, live, via a virtual meeting with a whiteboard, mic, etc.) you MUST:

a) be an ace student-- THROUGH algebra II. Minimum.

b) be handpicked by your teacher and approved by the teacher that runs the national tutoring program (and she definitely has her favorites).

The bottom line is that these are kids that know this material COLD-- and well beyond it, in fact. Not only that, but most of them can LEARN new material very, very rapidly and thoroughly-- so that anything quirky, they can figure out in a hurry if a student asks.

Why doesn't tutoring run through calculus, Hmmm? Some of these kids who are tutors are well into that level (or beyond it).


So they DO know. It's because of the effect that Val describes.

Reviewing a test with DD8 last night, we found a word problem describing a rectangular field 8 meters by 9 meters, calculate the area and perimeter. It was multiple choice, and two of the answers were:

B - Area 72 meters, Perimeter 34 square meters
C - Area 72 square meters, perimeter 34 meters.

DD incorrectly chose B, because they're apparently telling the children to memorize that square units apply to area, without bothering to explain WHY. I gave her a 5-minute intro to exponents, and she gathered why the terms "squared" and "cubed" apply to the second and third powers two minutes in.

So, my outrage over area and perimeter continue. Last year when DD was in 2nd grade, I was outraged because they were teaching how to calculate area before they'd introduced multiplication. Now it's because they're focusing on proper unit terms before they've introduced exponents. This is why I don't remember covering area and perimeter until I got to Geometry in 9th grade... because back in the olden times they had this silly idea that it was necessary to understand the underlying concepts first.

/vent

For this question, we need to know the definition of an aneroid barometer in DS's textbook. It is, "Aneroid Barometer: Aneroid means without liquid. An instrument used to measure atmospheric pressure; based on the movement of the lid of a metal box."

Q. An aneroid barometer is an instrument used to measure ___?

a. Atmospheric pressure
b. Liquid Pressure
c. (Something else.)

The correct answer was b.

Augh. That's bad.

Here's what I am sure is a prize winning entry:-

George has a bag of marbles. There are 9 red marbles, 4 blue marbles and 5 black marbles in the bag. What is the likelihood that George will pick a red marble out of the bag?

a) Impossible
b) Certain
c) Least likely
d) Most likely

Here's the second part of the question. There are x holes of diameter d in the bottom of the bag. Three of the marbles have diameter = d. It is Tuesday. What is the probability that a red marble is drawn now?

The answer choices are 1 to 5 on a Lickert scale, with 1 being "strongly probable" and 5 "strongly improbable".

The marble question seems clear to me. Most Likely. If Equally Likely was also an option, then it would be a mess.

But it's not most likely. It's equally likely.

The reading that excludes equally likely as an option is that red's probability is being compared to blue's probability and to black's probability. Which appears to be consistent with how likelihood is presented in elementary math classes.

[/quote]

Gosh, I just really get hung up on these, because it just always seemed to be asking someone to explain something SOOOO obvious, it would be almost as bad as asking a child to spell a word by sounding it out...and then asking them how they knew to use those letters. Aaarg.

I am with Val, it is equally likely - compare the chances that the marble is red 9/18 with chances that it isn't red 9/18. Red versus non-red are equally likely.

It is a badly written question, IMO.

Yes, and (says my snarky, over-thinking mind) they never said those were all the marbles in the bag, either.

As a child, given that question, I would probably have written:

(e)50/50*

*assuming there are no other marbles in the bag other than the ones mentioned.

I think several of you protest too much. For someone who understands the maths one, and only one, of those answers is reasonable. Maybe over-thinking it is in some way fun, but I'd be concerned if my, or any, child couldn't actually pick the right answer easily.

Well it is most likely to be red, 9/18 vs 5/18 and 4/18. But it is equally likely to be red or not red. I don't think the question was that clear but then I tend to overthink things. The barometer question is just silly.

The barometer question is an obvious typo, again, not worth wasting energy on!

[ETA Why yes, I might be feeling grumpy because I've spent too much of my life writing exam questions lately and know just how hard it is to write lots of them in limited time so that no smart alec can possibly claim there's a problem with them, especially given that making the questions too wordy throws students far more often than leaving over-thinking loopholes does...]

How is comparing the chances of it being red with the chances of it not being red over thinking?

None of the options there are correct - perhaps one is reasonable if the question is rethought into 'which color marble is must likely to be drawn' but absolutely not as the question was asked.

BTW, please tell me if I am wrong about the chances of it being red versus non-red being even.

Sure "most likely" is correct, for one obvious and reasonable interpretation of the question. Taking the offered answers to a multiple choice question into account when deciding how to interpret the question seems like a reasonable expectation to me.

Copying the question in:
Note that it doesn't ask for the "probability" (technical term) it asks for the "likelihood" (colloquial term). Seems to me perfectly reasonable to interpret this as "... compared to the likelihood that he will pick a blue marble, and to the likelihood that he will pick a black marble". You have to interpret it as compared to something to make the answers make sense, and while the concepts "blue" and "black" appear in the question explicitly, the concept "not red" does not.

If "equally likely" had been one of the options, I might have agreed that it was a bad question (but I'd still expect most students to get it right). Given that it wasn't, I really think a student who gets this wrong deserves to lose a mark.

Was anyone's child confused by this to the extent that they couldn't give the correct answer, really, honestly?




You're correct there of course.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree here, ColinsMum.

As far as I am concerned the answer to the question as stated (not interpreted with any assumptions reasonable or otherwise) was not an option provided.

I agree with ColinsMum. It's not the world's greatest question. But I've seen worse!

That's the problem with the question. It's open to interpretation. A math question in lower elementary school shouldn't be open to interpretation, and no student, regardless of age, should have to read the exam writer's mind in order to understand what's being asked.

It didn't say "likelihood of picking red versus blue OR black." In that case, red would be most likely. It just said the likelihood of picking red. To me, this is pretty clear: it means "red" or "not red," which is equally likely. But that's the problem. The other interpretation is equally clear to other people. So it's a bad question.

This a just one of many problems with multiple choice questions. If the question had been open-ended, the student could explain the answer and the teacher could see that there were two possible interpretations. Multiple choice questions don't allow for this process. IMO, they can be written more for the convenience of the person grading them than they are to measure what the student actually knows. Essay, short answer, and other similar types of questions ask students to synthesize information and allow them to explain answers. MC questions don't, and again, they don't reflect the kind of thinking required in the workplace.

Yes, so "most likely" is most likely to be the answer they are looking for, given the choices -- and if you're at the point of having to figure out what the most likely answer is, instead of the correct answer, it's not a good problem.

____________ energy comes from the burning of carbohydrates.

is it...


a. kinetic?

or

b. potential?


DD-- Um....


YES??

I presume they aren't referring to toast here.

Presumably not. A bit later DD also piped up to ask me if I was aware that diabetes is the result of poor cardiovascular conditioning...



This would be news to anyone with Type I, I'm thinking...

Well, on this, I certainly agree.

Although I am glad to see DD using the time-honored strategy of crossing out obviously wrong answers and choosing between the remaining two (or whatever) when approaching a bad MC question (we taught her this, of course), I always feel a slight unease in my gut about it, too.

Not so much a bad homework question issue as a bad teacher issue...

DD9 asked me to quiz her on a geography study guide, all of which was review from last year, and should be easy. And it was, up until we got to:

Me: Which hemispheres are we in?

DD: North.

Me: And?

DD: East. [pause] No, west.

Me: (sensing she may have changed because she saw a reaction from me) Are you sure?

DD: East.

Obviously she was guessing, and in pressing her on it, I found out that her teacher had told her that the prime meridian went all the way around the earth. [facepalm] That would beg the question... east or west of WHAT? DD told me this same teacher told her the same thing last year, and when the teacher repeated it in class that morning, several of the students who hadn't had her last year went, "HUH??"

For any who remember some of my earlier posts, this is the teacher DD calls "the vampire."

Well, clearly those of us in N. America are in the LEFT-ern hemisphere. Because that's where it is in the picture in the textbook, too.

DS is working on a "Martian Genotypes" assignment for science, using Punnett squares. A question asks, "two Martians who are both heterozygous for fingers marry and have four children. What percent of their children will have three fingers and what percent will have two?" (Three is dominant)
So: FF, Ff, Ff, ff.

I have had him write a disclaimer on his answer, explaining that while there is a 75% chance of any child having three fingers and a 25% chance of any child having two, that is NOT the same thing as "75% of their children will have three fingers". They could all have three, or all have two. Grr. And there is another question that does the same thing, incorrectly.

To mix it up, there are other questions worded that way which are correct, such as the one where 100% of the children will have two antennae because one parent is homozygous dominant and the other is homozygous recessive.

It is a little thing but according to ds7's teacher 4500g converts to 4.500kg. It is not inaccurate just incorrect and it makes me think she just taught them to move the decimal place rather than say there are 4.5 1000's in 4500.

I'm just a 'umble maths prof, but that doesn't look incorrect to me, even if it is an opportunity to talk about precision and how to guess it when it isn't stated...

But if it were 4578g it would be 4.578kg...so I don't see why if you first measured in grams to precisely 4500 that it wouldn't be 4.500 or 4.5 kg --to me both answers are okay but what do I know..

4578 is clearly a precise amount down to its last digit (all the digits are "significant"), while 4500 may represented a rounded number. That's what Colinsmum means about guessing the level of precision when it's not stated.

But I think it's probably a safe bet that the teacher is not thinking about significant digits, and is just following an over-simplified rule.

Depends on whether that is a VALUE, or a MEASUREMENT.

Since there are units attached, it is clearly the latter, and therefore significant figures should not be ignored. This kind of thing really comes back to bite kids in college science coursework. They simply cannot wrap their heads around significant zeros when they've had it drilled into them that nothing is ever just a placeholder. {sigh}


This is why scientific notation rocks, by the way.

DS was doing an online problem set in math. He thought it would take him 90 minutes or so. After 2 or 3 hours, he was tearing his hair out and ready to give up altogether because he simply could not get the correct answer to a problem (you have to keep trying until you get it right in this system). He had tried everything he could think of, and still the system said it was wrong.

Turned out that his original answer was x.0. It should have been x.0000.

The system did NOT state something along the lines of, "Provide your answer to 4 decimal places."

I have heard many people complain that they or their kids spend n minutes solving a math/chem/physics/whatever problem and then 3n+ minutes trying to figure out how to format the answer so that the system likes it.

I really, really, do not like these online systems. I don't like the formatting requirements, I don't like "get ten-in-a-row-right-or-start-again," I don't like the way they give you a menu of topics to do, I don't like the fact that the problems are not of the breadth and depth needed to gain a decent understanding of a subject, and so on.

More bad homework: my two younger kids come home with packet work that includes giant word searches and "puzzlers" along the lines of "Vocabulary words from the chapter are hidden in the phone numbers below! Use the key on the keypad to figure out what word this is:

467-3287 (Hint: creepy!)

The answer to that one was "insects." My kids do not think insects are creepy, nor do I. I don't remember how long it took to decode those terms, but nothing was learned about insects or reptiles and whatever that third term was in the process. But I suppose that had I told them, my kids might have learned that people used to cause repetitive strain injuries in their thumbs by using keypads to send text messages. But alas, we were so annoyed when it was done, they just went to bed.

Teachers give out this stuff because it's "fun." IMO, a word search is fun on a rainy Saturday when you feel like doing a word search. It is not fun when it's Tuesday night after dinner and you have 4 other things to get done (including those stupid phone numbers, a study guide, and some essay questions), and it's going to take a half-hour to find a long list of vocabulary words embedded in a 15x15 matrix.

I told my kids that I'll be doing word searches and phone number puzzles from now on.

Yup..I've done word searches for my DS in elementary school. I completely agree they are not educational, are not fun for either DS or I and are an excellent example of busywork. I'm normally a parent that insist if my kid can't finish the homework to just turn it in that way, BUT I will do is do a word search for a kid because I don't see ANY educational value and they take my son forever.

I would probably talk with to the teacher about this kind of homework and warn them that in the future you won't have your kids do this type of work.

DD has real work for the first time in two years... which means I can participate in this thread now!

A recent math question for an online curriculum:

Explain how you would draw a model to show the solution to the equation 2x=6. State the solution and explain how the model helps you find the solution.

DDs answer:

"I am not a visual thinker. Models do not make sense to me, however I understand to solve the problem I need to isolate X. I understand that multiplication and division are inverse operations.

Thank you and sorry about the inconvenience."

She then went on to describe how she would solve the problem... and got the correct answer.

I can't wait to see what the teacher makes of this response.

Oh Ivy -- I admire your DD! I hope the teacher takes it as politely as your daughter wrote her answer.

BTW, how is this solved using a model? Anything I come up with seems so messy and confusing!

I'm interested in that outcome, too, Ivy.

I told my kids that I'll be doing word searches and phone number puzzles from now on.



I second the opinion re: online systems of "homework," by the way. And to be clear for everyone else-- this isn't in a primary or secondary setting, either-- but post-secondary. Truly appalling-- DD has reported that her faculty often have no idea just HOW bad they are to work with, unless students actually demonstrate how difficult it is to get the system to accept a correct solution.

You're more sporting than me. I'd probably just attach a note to the unfinished page and say, "Incomplete with parent permission. If you have concerns, call me."

In the lesson they had like these little scales, with boxes on both sides? Frankly it didn't make sense to me either.

Lovely common core we are dealing with the same thing. If ds doesn't use their model he gets the answer wrong even if he actually got it right

Well, using the Singapore method, the bar model would look like a long narrow horizontal rectangle, which you divide into halves with a small vertical line in the middle. Then you label the complete long bar "6", indicating that it is 6 units long, and each of the small sub-bars "3", indicating that they are 3 units long.

My feeble attempt at a bar model:

.________6________
[________]________]
. . . .3 . . . . . 3

Do let us know what the teacher says.

I've been waiting to get this back to you, but the grades just finally came in. So, she got the problem wrong, but the teacher added this comment:

"Hi DD, I appreciate that you prefer to think of the problem in equation form. However, part of learning is trying to understand things in another way. Curriculum asks students to do this frequently in the course. Please do the best you can to try, even struggle, with the models and questions that you are given.

Great job with your equation representation. You did an excellent job of explaining your thinking!"

To be honest, this is some thoughtful and kind feedback. I still think the model thing is silly, but I can't argue with "you're being asked to think this way, so TRY."

Edited to add: she actually got 4 of 6 points on that question.