Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Ultimate Bad Homework Question Thread!

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!"