blonde poker forum

These are two questions Jake had for homework this week.

Please just give what you think the answers are, but don't give your workings.


1. I bought 3 oranges for 29p and two drinks for £1.04. How much did I spend altogether?

2. I buy 6 CDs costing £6.99. How much change do I get from £50?

Thanks!

£2.95

£8.06

£1.33

£43.01

Agree, not only are the questions imprecise, people still buy CDs?

Thanks for the answers.

Jake gave the same responses as Kush and when confronted with the questions, so did I.

Obviously the last 3 posts are technically correct and we are wrong.

But his teacher just put two big red crosses next to his answers without any explanation as to why they were wrong.

Terribly worded questions IMO.

Or would she ask trick questions to 9 and 10 year olds?

£1.33

£8.06

Patrick Rothfuss gets called a genius for writing like that. If you fly through it quickly it reads like a cross between Harry Potter and Jack Reacher. Reread it carefully and a little more literally and you realise that there is some really cool stuff hidden in plain sight. Perhaps the Teacher is a fan.

Teacher is from the 1970s clearly.  Ask him where he can buy 3 oranges for 29p these days.  

Am in the question is terrible camp.  Just putting red x's without explanation is terrible too.  My daughters teachers don't even use red ink, as it is seen as negative.  

Why are the questions terrible?

They seem quite straight forward.

If the question said they bought X at £X each then the kush answer would be right. But they didn't.

I assume that you have now been sacked from helping Jake with his homework.

terribly worded or not digested properly ?

Technically this is correct, but it would be clearer if the total cost of the oranges were divisible by 3 and the total cost of the CD's were divisible by 6 and although it's not needed we were told on a PGCE course that you should always make the wording of questions overly precise - specifically to avoid pupils misinterpreting the language rather than being unable to do the maths.

The fact that the teacher just marked it wrong suggests that they didn't bother looking at the answers and was just tick/crossing all the work. It should be 1/2 mark for each with an explanation of why it was wrong.

Think this is one of those wonderful moments where you get to sit down with your lad and tell him he is smarter than his teacher.

very poor questions indeed. badly worded

would hve a hard time marking either of

£1.33

£43.01

or

£2.95

£8.06

incorrect, such is the phraseology

My wife is an incredibly experienced and excellent educator and suggests that this question is less about the arithmetic skills of Jake and his peers and more about their ability to apply those abilities.

Bloom's Taxonomy (Google for more) charts the stages of learning, broadly according to the diagram.

(http://ww2.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/fx_Bloom-old.jpg)

Anita says your son is being challenged to show higher order thinking skills and is obviously doing well.

The number of items is completely irrelevant information.  In the context of an arithmetic homework question when information is supplied it is reasonable to conclude that it should be used in the calculation.

Can't see how this question is challenging higher level thinking skills?

It is clearly poorly worded and vague.

As someone who has devoted her life to teaching and whose current job is as Proncipal in a Primary School, I think my wife's opinion carries some weight. She says

"It is, clearly, very cleverly worded to test the pupils' comprehension of the subject."

In essence, it is not a question that measures/tests numeracy skills.

Did you tell her that the teacher put a big red cross by the answers and offered no feeedback?

The question 'could' be used to evaluate developmental level - but I think in this case it clearly wasn't.

tell her to do her job if that is the case.

the correct answer to the second question is clearly where did you go that accepted 50's AND sells CDs  rotflmfao

Smack the teacher

You have made my point David - comprehension is NOT a higher level thinking skill, it is only 2nd on Blooms taxonomy. I also work in education and one of my many roles in school is helping NQTs and evaluating their progress. In my humble opinion, this kind of question will cause pupils to become frustrated, especially with the very poor, lazy feedback from the teacher.

How to reword this to make it a higher level thinking question...... I'm not sure this type of problem can be! Maybe you could try the following?
1. Evaluate the following situation : I bought 3 oranges for 29p and two drinks for £1.04. The cashier charged me £1.42.

Hutch,

Maybe it would help if you think about why this question was set.

Was it

A) to find out if they could work out (3 X 29) + 104

 B) to find out if the pupils could add 29 to 104

Or C) to see if they could understand which of A and B would provide the right answer

Given that by Year 5 or 6 which is I think where Jake is being able to calculate either answer should be within their knowledge base I suggest that C is the answer.

Wouldn't be happy if the big red cross in the book wasn't followed up with an explanation though.

Woolies?

1.33

43.01

My brother is a teacher and I asked him what he thought.

These are two step problems and the children of that age would find them tricky. Towards the end of the academic year you would hope at least a third of the class would be getting these all correct, but you would also differentiate the questions to suit the ability of the children e.g. I bought 3 oranges for 30p each and 2 drinks for £1 each. How much did I spend altogether?

BTW, if you miss out the word 'each', children would be likely to answer your original questions £1.33 and £43.01.

So he assumed 3 x 29 + 2 x 1.04 was what was required from the question but that it was badly written no "each" (and a typical child would think like Celtic and Byron).

Perhaps because Jake's answer was an "adult" answer the teacher suspects Camel of homework multi-accounting....

Can't agree with your reasoning David. The ambiguity of the question is apparent immediately to a child or adult but, even as an adult, we are unsure which answer is wanted. It's not cleverly worded - it's a silly trick question.

I don't even think it's a trick question.

Just can't see how it's terribly worded either.

I asked a guy I know today who is 20 something but thinks like a 5 year old most of the time, and he picked up on the fact that the word 'each' is missing so £1.33 & £43.01 were his answers too.

So what is the point of saying three oranges, two drinks and six cds, if not to confuse?

maybe these teachers should get an education first too  rotflmfao

Just looked back at Kushkin's post and if Jake had the same answers i would expect all teachers to put two red crosses by them since they are wrong whichever way you read the question.

Not going to pursue the debate since having taken guidance from my wife on it I am not going to argue with her. This isn't because I am scared of her, but because on matters educational I know no one better.

To develop the skill of extracting the relevant information from a statement.

If you ask me what time the bus is and I answer, "the blue double-decker bus will arrive at 1633" you extract the relevant piece of my reply.


Yeah I know I said I was done.

the point isn't the nature of marking a question wrong. it's the nature of not then teaching or providing any feedback for the student to actually learn and improve.

it also shows how much students are now taught to 'pass tests' not to learn or explore.


when reading a question they are thinking what similar questions have I done before, what order did I put the numbers in last time to get the marks. not, I read this, comprehend it's meaning and respond accordingly.

welll apparently 9yos would have difficulty with a properly worded two part arithmetic Q, so I find it surprising that they are expected to cope with an understanding ambiguity question disguised as an arithmetic question.

How do you know it will be blue?.

It actually shows the opposite.

David, your "reasoning" explanation is valid as a general point, it is simply unlikely in this scenario given the age of the children and the way the question was marked.  Also my brother considered that children of that age would simply have defaulted to the easiest answer, so the "reasoning" would have wooshed them completely.

I hear what you say, but as i have said more than once, this is not my take on this.
Like you I asked someone 'in the trade'.
I don't know what age children your brother works with, nor how much experience he has, but my wife has been teaching for over thirty years and is the Principal at a school with children of this age. She stays up to date with the methodology and thinking and her immediate reaction to the original post was to raise the point about Bloom's Taxonomy and she saw the question on the basis i described earlier.
I was taught to pass tests/exams throughout my education. Today's children are encouraged and taught to think.

Thanks for the posts, really interesting discussion.

I've been oscillating since I saw his homework book. Initially I thought they were terribly worded questions and the teacher just read them differently (the were printed off somewhere on the internet), then I kinda changed my mind and maybe it was a lesson in reading the question properly.

Points to note, these are 9 and 10 year olds answering these questions and it was maths homework, not a comprehension test and Jake says his teacher didn't warn the class to read the questions carefully..

Meh, I really don't know.

Meanwhile, before Jake takes his homework book back to school, here is another of the questions (it was a set of 12)

I bought a card costing £1.76 and a chocolate bar costing 63p. There was a 10% sale that day. How much did I spend?

I think the issue is that she is interpreting through the eyes of someone who is good at their job and actually cares about education. When I first saw the questions it was obvious that they 'could' contain multiple levels of analysis - but if you take into account the context it is absolutely clear that this isn't the case.

Their is no evidence that the teacher is using it to evaluate general comprehension - I thought it was pretty clear that it was maths homework and not any kind of cross subject at play - and their is no effort to identify and correct any misconceptions. It seems a lot like they are just told to set homework so they this one probably frequently just sets work they've used before and only takes a few minutes to mark.

I would also add on the other point,  my fiancees Mum works in a poorly rated primary school and my nieces attend a highly rated secondary school - I did teacher training (albeit 10 and 15 years ago) in half a dozen schools; the only school that taught the pupils to think rather than to the test was the private school. State schools have always been somewhat guilty of this, but the difference between seeing what state schools were doing between 2000, 2005 and presently (with my niece's school) was truly shocking. Good luck to anyone who can get their children into a state school that actually teaches their children to think and not pass tests.

.

Ha, very good.

On the basis of once bitten twice shy, presumably the answer is £1.76 + £0.63 = £2.39. 

Out of curiosity, which school is Jake at Keith? via PM if you prefer.


btw, if these questions had been just about the arithmetic, as some have suggested, they would have been put as

69 + 104 =
5000 - 699 =

Or
0.69 + 1.04 =
50 - 6.99 =

etc


Apropos the skill level of the teacher, as per JonMW's post, is Jake absolutely sure there was no feedback given about the answers? Had they spent time in school on questions of this type before the homework was set?

Given what has happened before, shouldn't we be adding in the amounts spent in the other 11 questions?

Meh, this question seems a lot clearer and gives support to the view that the previous question was also testing comprehension.  I do think you have to put better comments than"X" if you intend to do this though.

100% this.

Suggested improvement:

"The shop I go to sells at a mark up of 30%.  I bought a card costing £1.76 and a chocolate bar costing 63p. There was a 10% sale that day. How much did I spend?"

In seriousness, I think these questions are poor.  Kids shouldn't be constantly thinking the examiner is trying to trick them or double bluff them.  Learn the maths and be able to do it quickly without fear of being whooshed.

And if you are going to do it, certainly don't just put a cross without explanation if the kid falls for the semantic trick.  Dreadful way of teaching in my opinion.  Kids will have their confidence eroded for absolutely no reason.

It's not often I agree with Mint, but he's spot on here.

There can't be a shred of doubt that to mark it incorrect without explanation is an extremely poor show by the teacher. And it definitely inhibits people & damages their confidence if no reasoning is given.

You only have to look at the blonde PHA board, which we can reasonably assume is mainly populated by grown-ups, to see that. Someone poses a question, looking for feedback, reassurance, & to learn, then some unthinking oaf simply answers "fold", "call" or whatever with no explanation. And nobody learns a damn thing.

 

If you google the questions, it comes up as with results that are problems for year 6 children - so the ambiguity might be deliberate, but it is aimed at children older than Jake.

Jake could be on accelerated maths, so will get the questions earlier?  I don't know if my daughter's school is a standard state school, but the questions she gets are tailored to her ability.   Her education experience seems very different to mine, and I mean in a good way.

I had a look on the NICE website and it is as David3103's wife suggested to help evaluate understanding combining literacy and mathematics - the question's 'could' be clearer but aren't technically incorrect - the problem is how this teacher seems to be using them rather than the questions themselves.

In my mind it would be surprising if Jake isn't of above average numeracy, not only via his genes but also because it feels likely that Keith will have imparted an interest in the subject. May be wrong, but both I and my wife have maths backgrounds as do both daughters, and those of the grandchildren that have reached an age to show such tendencies.

Have a look at...
http://www.leics.gov.uk/usewordprobsexamp.doc

This links to a sheet of Multi Step Work Problems, including the ones we've debated. The major issue over Jake's experience here is that it seems the teacher hasn't done the groundwork on the solving process. Nor have they given decent feedback on the answers given. Unless Jake is like lots of 9yr old boys and tends not to discuss the actualities of school days...


Edit

Agreed, with the caveat that we might not be getting the full story from Jake

No listening, ya hear?

Presumably lots of kids would have made the same mistake so rather than writing down on every paper where they went wrong, the teacher intends to go through it in the classroom altogether? 

Primary school teachers do my nut in sometimes. I was playing in a friendly home game with a retired teacher/deputy head of 30+ years and we were discussing one of those irritating Facebook click bait posts that was going round. Something like "2+3x0+4=? 95% get it wrong, will you?"
He said it was 4.
Even when we explained it was an Order of Operations 'trick' question and why the answer was 6, he wouldn't accept it. He'd taught children that way his entire career, how could he be wrong :)

It was part of maths homework - the big red crosses suggest they were purely looking for the arithmetic; if it's meant to test maths and lots of pupils got it wrong because of the language used rather than because of their arithmetic then it's "wrong".

Even if it was addressed to the whole class afterwards then each pupil has the morale damaging big red crosses in their books without any credit for actually doing good maths (just for the wrong question). If a lot of pupils made the same mistake, then adding feedback in the books as well as to the whole class wouldn't really take that long to add - I think if there was some form of feedback that Jake/Keith just hasn't reported on then it's only mitigation rather than making it a reasonable teaching example.

On reflection, perhaps it's not arithmetic or comprehension, but training at reading questions carefully. Those kids know that the teacher is out to trip them up on technicalities, so they will examine her questions forensically from now on. Then, they will probably retain that habit through til they take important exams, where many people answer slightly different questions than the ones they were asked, and beyond that into real life. Learning to read questions very carefully will benefit them hugely more than a few maths Q&As. If that is what is going on, a red X is sufficient to teach them the lesson - I'm sure they know why their answers have been judged incorrect.

Giving a lot of credit here, but it's the only explanation that makes sense to me. A 'test of comprehension' doesn't seem to cut it.

(Sorry Dung)

Ha!  You've only pulled the hand break and performed a half donut because I agreed with you :)

As an aside this comprehension stuff when it comes to maths is rubbish.  Even after university when I hire kids I don't want them thinking for themselves.  I want them completing basic tasks at high speed and not second guessing themselves, whilst looking at me as some kind of corporate demi god so within 18 months I will have moulded them into tiny images of myself.  What more could a young prospect want?

Waiting nervously for David's wife to respond and give me a tick or an X.

(http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/nervous/nervous.gif) (http://www.sherv.net/)

You need to decide whether or not you've changed your mind here. It's become harder to understand what you think about this than to understand the original question.

It was set as maths homework - they are bad maths questions.

If it was set to develop a deeper understanding of the pupils ability and assessed properly with proper feedback then they would be ok

Can you reconcile the bolded statements for me please, and maybe offer an explanation for how primary school teachers can develop an understanding of their pupils positions within Bloom's?

I agree with the bolded part.  Basic maths is a fundamental tool in many careers, and this was specifically maths homework.  The skill to be learned is to compute figures quickly.  It's not helpful for learning that skill for the kid to be focusing on whether the examiner is tricking him with clever semantics.  It results in less time crunching numbers and erodes confidence.

Maths is not about computing numbers quickly at all although obviously in many branches of maths it is an important skill.

If I had set either of those questions I would have accepted both answers. If I was doing an intentional trip people up question (and they DO have their place in the right situation) then for Q1 I would expect the answers given here as each wasnt specified. For question 2 I'd expect to see "wtf can't answer that sort your question setting out" although at a push I'd have to assume the 10% was already included in the prices given. That one really is bad.

I thought it was clear - if it is used to look at literacy and maths it could be useful but it wasn't. If you are purely testing an arithmetic skill then the pupil shouldn't be punished for a problem with language.

In addition if it is purely testing arithmetic skills then the pupil should gain some credit for doing the correct arithmetic on the 'wrong' question. In the absence of further evidence it looks a lot like a teacher just going through the motions.

No.  But computing numbers efficiently and confidently is the core building block and generates confidence to advance to other topics.  This line of questioning undermines that.

Have you even read any of the posts showing that this is, very specifically, a question aimed at assessing the pupils' ability to answer multi step word problems?
Here's another, this from the TES website

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/multi-step-word-problems-6072795

I'd love to hear from Keith or Jake on the topic of pre and follow up work on these questions, or question types. There really should be some and whilst many here are assuming there wasn't I'm more inclined to think there was, but Jake hasn't shared it yet.

These questions look much fairer.  It's clear what they are after and what they are testing from reading the first few.
 In my opinion it's different from leaving out the word 'each' or trying to trick a pupil over whether a price is pre or post sale discount.

As I say it depends on the context. Aimed at a primary school class where you're going for the multi step concept then it's inappropriate. In this case I imagine it was just lazy question setting which does happen. Teachers are very busy after all. Can easily be rectified by an in class discussion and changing the marks of anyone who got it "wrong".

Questions like this however are good to give to a slightly older higher ability class. Another important skill of maths is to understand a problem and then use the relevant skills to solve it. And whilst I think these particular questions are verging towards unfair as even having spotted the trick you're second guessing what is required the actual concept is sound.

That's the crux though isn't it.  These questions lead to second guessing and confusion.  The questions in David's link are fairer and clear in what they require.  The questions in this thread are simply poor.

A lot of the questions are clearer but it highlights the problem - it's a resource for teachers to download and use without any context of 'how' to use it. The result will then depend on the teacher themselves rather than the resource. The fact that they're downloading a pre-prepared worksheet rather than creating their own might say something (and obviously once created your own resources can be used in future years - so it's not like it creates that much more work over the long term).

I'm aware that my knowledge is pretty much "text-book" and academic (with a fair amount of anecdotal) rather than from any great deal of experience but resources like this do remind me a lot of the academic part of teacher training at Kings College (London) - most of the taught part in particular -  was addressing how to assess what misconceptions pupils have with, obviously, a specific look at the most common. Most of the explanations were explained by - because of how this is taught in some primary schools.

There are lots of good primary schools and lots of good primary school teachers - but their are also a lot of mediocre ones. Particularly when you get maths being taught by someone who might not have done maths since A Level (or even O Level). Not saying this is necessarily the case for Jake's teacher - but probability wise I'd have thought with the evidence available it's a lot more likely that they don't really do much with the homework rather than it's part of a cleverly structured sequence of lesson plans.

For clarity, the link I gave earlier includes the questions in the OP if you view the second slide.


https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/multi-step-word-problems-6072795

Right next to this gem of a question

"The area of a rectangular field is 96m^2.  The length of one side is 12m.  The farmer needs to know its perimeter to work out how much fencing will be needed?"

The answer is obviously "yes".

"Blackberry bushes cost £10.95 each.  There is a special offer that if you buy three, they cost £25.  How much do you save through this offer"

My wife will tell me she has saved £7.85, but the correct answer is she has saved nothing and instead spent £25. 

I can assure you my wife has spent fortunes over the years and saved little partly thanks to her poor understanding of the right answer to problems such as these. 

Been ill the last couple of days, will catch up with the thread when I'm feeling better.

Some more interesting stuff by the looks of things.

(http://i.imgur.com/KtKNmXG.png)

Child clearly understands the concepts being taught/tested, teacher seems slightly confused.

Ask the teacher how they would suggest 50 X 3 is solved
50+50+50
or
3+3+3+3+3+3+3......,,,,,

Where is that even from - looks American?

Back to the stupid questions.

What is the answer to this

Pencils cost 100 for £14
Pens cost 18p each
Erasers cost £9 for 100.

If I bought a pencil, an eraser and a pen for 100 children how much would I spend? How much would I spend on each child?

£41 total and 41p each

That's what Jake has answered.

I think it's 41p total and 0.41p per child.

No

It cant be

We have no idea of the price breaks, a single pen could be 50p

Ridiculous

I see what you've done there ;)
Them pesky teachers with their ambiguous questions again, don't you just love 'em

Without reading any of the other responses I'm going to go for:

41p total and 0.18p per child. Not sure how they're going to share that pen between them but that's their problem.

That's Britain outside the EU for you.

How on earth do you come up with 0.18p per child though? Surely should be 41p/100?

Surely it's not the role of a teacher to set a question designed to catch children out?

I'd go for £41 in total and 41p each.  

£23.18
to buy A pencil you have to buy 100
to buy A eraser you have to buy 100
You can buy just one pen
you have to buy the pencils and erasers in 100s to share A one of each with 100 children

Think atdc has cracked it, we don't know whether you can buy individual pens/erasers. 

I would reply to this question with a copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" or some other such grammar related tome.

Bloody hell I think you are right.

Such a stupid question to ask a 10 year old.

I bought a pencil and an eraser for myself, that was 23p

I bought a pen for 100 children to share between them at 18p

Oh my.

You might be right too!

I just don't get why they do this.  I'd be tempted to mark 3 different answers as right.  meh.

I used to be told that there were no trick questions in exams.   

That must have been when we were part of the EU.

Even by your own measure, your answer is wrong, cos if they only buy one of everything, they don't spend the same on each child. They spend the total cost on the first child and nothing for every subsequent one.

But it's all nonsense. Jake is obviously right.

All I know is I would bet decent money Jake's answer will be marked incorrect.

This is what we were taught when I did a PGCE for Maths. I suspect the principle is still the same so it's down to teachers not realising that what they say is ambiguous.

My boss has a massive bugbear about this in general - nothing to do with teaching - people not realising what they say is ambiguous. Every day he has to ask clients to clarify exactly what they mean, and most of them don't realise they haven't said something specific.

That's just the nature of (non-formal) languages though, particularly English.
Ambiguities arise due to the nature of the language and they are exacerbated by people being careless when they speak/write.
When I was a Systems Designer, a significant part of my work used to be related to resolving ambiguities and omissions in specifications.

When I went on a course a few decades ago we were invited to provide as many different meanings as we could for the simple phrase "Mary had a little lamb".
Attendee 1 came up with "Mary use to own a small lamb"; attendee 2 came up with "Mary ate a small portion of lamb" and Dafydd came up with something entirely different. :)

Mary had a little lamb
The midwife had a fit.  

Chuckled^

To be fair this homework came under the the headline "word problems"

It reminds me of this;

Mom sent me shopping to buy a loaf of bread and said if there were any eggs buy I was to buy a dozen.

She clipped me round the ear when I turned up with 12 loaves.

Has this been marked yet?

Who got it right?

Must have been marked by now, but I didn't check. Will do so tonight.

Cheers

 ;bump;