Clever, messy, adding an extra level of complexity, unnecessary, and pointlessly hard. Yes, that describes perfectly my son's approach to many things in math!
He will sit there and cover two sheets of paper in unnecessary calculations to do something the hard way, to show how he came up with the answer that he had instantly in his head.
It's utterly fascinating, and supremely frustrating, to watch! I think at least some of it comes from having the intuitive grasp of the abstract but no practical knowledge of the methods most people use to get there. If you don't know how to do something, you have to invent a new way.
Of course, I should have realized I could plug another set of numbers in to check it -- I've only told him that a million times. And I like the stick thing!
I, on the other hand, looked at the question and insisted for a long time that there was no single answer. I thought it depended on which ones you assigned to the second slot -- if you designated 15 with cups, then it depended on which 21 you assigned to have plates. But I finally figured out that the phrasing of the question does not allow for any trays that have neither, which limits it to 11 with both. And it never once crossed my mind to convert anything to percentages! :p
