Some Parents In England Were Stumped By This Math Question

[Swerd]

The only rational answer is 65. The other answers come from the ambiguous wording of the question. Was it intentional or was it done out of ignorance?

 

[rojo]

Personally I like this one a bit better:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/internet-losing-mind-confusing-pizza-161300422.html?ref=gs

I suspect that teacher wouldn't have batted an eyelash at Nigel's amps going to 11.

The answer to this is that Marty's pizza was an extra large, while Luis' pizza was a small. See, I can do lateral thinking. I can't do illogical, though, which is my problem with fuzz's assessment that 65 is wrong for the train thing.

 

[Swerd]

Personally I like this one a bit better:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/internet-losing-mind-confusing-pizza-161300422.html?ref=gs

I suspect that teacher wouldn't have batted an eyelash at Nigel's amps going to 11.

That problem confuses fractions with total amount.

It's no different than certain news stories I've seen recently. They suggest a certain presidential candidate (who happens to strongly resemble an Oompa Loompa) who has dominated his party's primary votes, will therefore dominate the national election in November.

The total votes he has received in all the primaries amount to 4.7% of the number of eligible voters nationwide. Even if half of those eligible voters actually vote, that total is less than 10%.

 

[Steve81]

The answer to this is that Marty's pizza was an extra large, while Luis' pizza was a small. See, I can do lateral thinking.

That's more or less what the student said. Still got marked wrong, because 5/6 is greater than 4/6.

 

[fuzz092888]

I never said it was a good question and the issue so many of you have is what's causing the uproar and is a systemic problem with the direction education is heading as a whole.

As it was originally written with each piece of information on a separate line

There were some people on a train.

19 people get off the train at the first stop.

17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train.

How many people were on the train to begin with?

The expectation is that students are to immediately eliminate the second line since we are not concerned with what happens at the first stop since it does not affect how many people were originally on the train.

You can disagree all you want, it is what it is and it is what educators in the US and overseas are dealing with every day. For instance, some of my geometry kids recently took the PARCC exam, likely the hardest math test they will have taken up to this point in their lives and it is a cumulative exam encompassing algebra skills and the entire geometry curriculum, with ~3 months left in the school year. Somehow that's fair.

These problems pop up and most teachers are saying to themselves, "Yea and......." Because this are the types of problems we deal with day to day as we prepare kids to take tests that many of them aren't ready for, for a wide variety of reasons. Including the fact that half or over half of the math tests are now ELA tests as well in order to decipher the problem.

Sorry Fuzz, but this doesn't make any sense to me:

I could see one could argue about train conductor etc... but above math doesn't make sense

 

[rojo]

That's more or less what the student said. Still got marked wrong, because 5/6 is greater than 4/6.

If my daughter ever gets marked wrong for lateral thinking, I'm buying her a fudge dessert as a reward.

 

[KEW]

Personally I like this one a bit better:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/internet-losing-mind-confusing-pizza-161300422.html?ref=gs

I suspect that teacher wouldn't have batted an eyelash at Nigel's amps going to 11.

WOW! that takes dickishness (which if i hyphonate becomes lord helmet-ishness thank to auto-censor) to an entirely new level. The category "Reasonableness" might be argued as an indication that this was a true or false type question; however, to end it with the question "How is this possible" destroys that approach!

 

[KEW]

I never said it was a good question and the issue so many of you have is what's causing the uproar and is a systemic problem with the direction education is heading as a whole.

As it was originally written with each piece of information on a separate line

There were some people on a train.

19 people get off the train at the first stop.

17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train.

How many people were on the train to begin with?

The expectation is that students are to immediately eliminate the second line since we are not concerned with what happens at the first stop since it does not affect how many people were originally on the train.

You can disagree all you want, it is what it is and it is what educators in the US and overseas are dealing with every day. For instance, some of my geometry kids recently took the PARCC exam, likely the hardest math test they will have taken up to this point in their lives and it is a cumulative exam encompassing algebra skills and the entire geometry curriculum, with ~3 months left in the school year. Somehow that's fair.

These problems pop up and most teachers are saying to themselves, "Yea and......." Because this are the types of problems we deal with day to day as we prepare kids to take tests that many of them aren't ready for, for a wide variety of reasons. Including the fact that half or over half of the math tests are now ELA tests as well in order to decipher the problem.

So it gets down to what is the proper understanding of "begin"?
I would (like most people, apparently) think begin was before the first stop since info on the first stop was included as part of the problem.
It seems to me that the problem is designed to be misleading. This seems like it would be a simple problem for about anyone if instead of "to begin with" it read "before the people got on":

How many people were on the train before the people got on?

Where is the value in interpreting the "point of beginning" based on some arbitrary notion of what it should mean?
Or maybe I should ask why the interpretation of "begin" would be considered well enough defined for a test question!

 

[Steve81]

As it was originally written with each piece of information on a separate line

There were some people on a train.

19 people get off the train at the first stop.

17 people get on the train.

Now there are 63 people on the train.

How many people were on the train to begin with?

The expectation is that students are to immediately eliminate the second line since we are not concerned with what happens at the first stop since it does not affect how many people were originally on the train.

Fixed it for you

As for the expectation of eliminating the second line, the problem is that it is relevant in terms of setting a reasonably presumed time table.

Steve likes pizza.

Steve went to Pizza Hut.

Steve ate pizza.

Taken together, one reasonably assumes I went to Pizza Hut and ate pizza. Sure, I could have eaten pizza at home first, and then gone to Pizza Hut, but what sense would that make given what I've laid out?

 

[Steve81]

One other small dilemma stemming from my decades of experience living at the end of a train line...

At Station 0, 17 people get on, bumping the total number of people on the train from 46 to 63.

Where did the 46 additional people on the train at Station 0 come from? Are they just living on the train?

 

[rojo]

One other small dilemma stemming from my decades of experience living at the end of a train line...

At Station 0, 17 people get on, bumping the total number of people on the train from 46 to 63.

Where did the 46 additional people on the train at Station 0 come from? Are they just living on the train?

That bothered me as well, but I just figured the beginning of the line wasn't a "stop". It was the initial boarding. The second train station would be the first stop.

 

[Cosmic Char]

You guys have this all wrong. The people that were on the train were:
A. Beamed in by Scotty
B. Were born on the train
C. The original workers who manufactured the train, whom forgot to get off the train after the work was completed
or
D. Astral projecting themselves onto the train, just to mess with young children's heads and math questions on standardized exams that do not measure all aspects of intelligence, rather arbitrarily rank them for some performance measure by someone to fulfill some goal. Therefore, I still say the answer is ZERO!

Of course, the longest explanation is always the correct one on multiple choice questions.

 

[slipperybidness]

The only rational answer is 65. The other answers come from the ambiguous wording of the question. Was it intentional or was it done out of ignorance?

Outsourcing!

 

[Swerd]

Outsourcing!

Outsourcing – Professional Ignorance. When only the best will do.

 

[cpd]

I never said it was a good question and the issue so many of you have is what's causing the uproar and is a systemic problem with the direction education is heading as a whole.

As it was originally written with each piece of information on a separate line

There were some people on a train.

19 people get off the train at the first stop.

17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train.

How many people were on the train to begin with?

The expectation is that students are to immediately eliminate the second line since we are not concerned with what happens at the first stop since it does not affect how many people were originally on the train.

You can disagree all you want, it is what it is and it is what educators in the US and overseas are dealing with every day. For instance, some of my geometry kids recently took the PARCC exam, likely the hardest math test they will have taken up to this point in their lives and it is a cumulative exam encompassing algebra skills and the entire geometry curriculum, with ~3 months left in the school year. Somehow that's fair.

These problems pop up and most teachers are saying to themselves, "Yea and......." Because this are the types of problems we deal with day to day as we prepare kids to take tests that many of them aren't ready for, for a wide variety of reasons. Including the fact that half or over half of the math tests are now ELA tests as well in order to decipher the problem.

The last line asks how many people were on the train "to begin with"? To most people that means at the very beginning. Whether we count the "first stop" as station 1 or station 2, 19 more people were on the train when it was sitting at (station 1) or pulled into (station 2) the first stop. We cannot eliminate those people since they were on the train "to begin with."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you are in agreement with that analysis, and are placing blame on the drafter of this question and their belief that we should ignore the 19 people?

 

[dpc]

In my opinion if this was intended to come out to anything other than 65, this was a failure on the part of the person who created the problem.

In the beginning there was a train, and it was empty before the conductor got on, "some people" got on, 19 people got off, and 17 people got on. So I'll interpret this in yet another way and go with 0 as long as we're listing ways this could be misinterpreted.

Is the point to see if the student can solve a math problem, or a riddle while also guessing correctly at how the question creator intended it to be interpreted?

 

[cpd]

In my opinion if this was intended to come out to anything other than 65, this was a failure on the part of the person who created the problem.

In the beginning there was a train, and it was empty before the conductor got on, "some people" got on, 19 people got off, and 17 people got on. So I'll interpret this in yet another way and go with 0 as long as we're listing ways this could be misinterpreted.

Is the point to see if the student can solve a math problem, or a riddle while also guessing correctly at how the question creator intended it to be interpreted?

And for 6 year-olds no less. If most of the adults on this forum and the internet cannot grasp the strained interpretation resulting in an answer of 46, how can we expect 1st graders to do so.

 

[Cosmic Char]

What is the saddest part of our society, these people are 'educating' our next generation. Our society is doomed. This forum is a very powerful example that knowledge is power. With the right knowledge, one can make the right choices. Fortunately, there are still some intelligent teachers out there...at least I hope!

 

[herbu]

The other answers come from the ambiguous wording of the question. Was it intentional or was it done out of ignorance?

Since the author ended his sentence with a preposition, I'll say "ignorance".

 

[lsiberian]

What is the saddest part of our society, these people are 'educating' our next generation. Our society is doomed. This forum is a very powerful example that knowledge is power. With the right knowledge, one can make the right choices. Fortunately, there are still some intelligent teachers out there...at least I hope!

No these are the people making the tests for our children not the competent teachers who actually would teach the kids properly if allowed. This is why I'd never send a child to a public school anymore. They went downhill quickly.