5th-grade student’s exam question has left adults stumped - ITT: Kiwis MATI because they can't Math

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One sibling has been left scratching their head at their younger brother’s Year 5 math exam.

The question, shared to Reddit, asks students to figure out how many pages are in a book.

“Klein read 30 pages of a book on Monday and one eighth of the book on Tuesday,” the question read.

“He completed the remaining quarter of the book on Wednesday. How many pages are there in the book?”

Some social media users were immediately stumped by the question.
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One person commented: “And now we can all see why “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” worked as a game show.”

“Today I learned I would fail fifth grade math,” another said on the thread.

One passionate person said: “I always think to my self; ‘Ugh. People should really be tested with basic skills before they’re allowed to go out into society.”

“And then I see this and realize I shouldn’t go out into society LOL!”

Not everyone agreed the question difficult.

“Not to be rude, but what is interesting about this,” one said.

“It looks just like any other math problem that I’ve done in 5th grade.”

Someone with a PhD in engineering, with a focus on applied mathematics, said it wasn’t difficult to work out but it came with the assumption that Klein started the book on Monday.

Once you have that, you divide 30 pages by five to see how much one eighth is worth, with the answer being six.

Math lovers then just do the simple multiplication of eight times six, with the answer being 48, and the equation is solved.

Really hate how math illiterate our society is. This problem is a basic equation

30+x/8+×/4=x

where x is the #of pages read, and the 3 counts they give you have to add up to x.

we multiply by 8 to make our lives easier

240+x+2x=8x

then we bring the xs to one side
240 = 8x-x-2x
add the xs
240= 5x
then divide by 5
48=x

I hate people who suck at math
 
There is a pizza party at Sunset Boulevard. There are two symmetrically cut large pizzas. Joan had 3 slices. Grace had 1/3 of a pie. Norma had 1/4 of a pie. Bette had 4. How many slices are left?

There, figure this out.
Going by the average that Pizzas are usually cut into 8 slices.

2 Pizzas = 16 slices

16 - (3 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 4)

1/4 of 8 is 2; so 16 - (3 + 1/3 + 2 +4)

Let's clean up the non-fraction numbers; so 16 - (9 + 1/3)

1/3 of 8 is 2.666R, so let's round up to 3; so 16 - 12

There are 4 slices left, and they're all mine.
 
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I just hated long division. Always checking, always wondering if that fucking remainder is supposed to be there, and the knowledge I'd probably never do division that much ever again compared to addition, subtraction, and multiplication. So hey, they gave me multiple choice answers to work with.
Wait, you had a literal multiple choice problems when you were still learning multiplication/division? I thought maybe you would just guess until you ballparked the correct number. And I assumed this was at least a polynomial with double negatives or something.

Ok I won't call you a genius, but I'll call you a big fish in a small pond. You were clearly paying attention to the relationship between multiplication and division enough to manipulate them to your needs, and the teacher is a tard if they can't even grade that by hand. And if the teacher is a tard, I don't expect much of your former peers.

I was being a little hyperbolic obviously, some people aren't great at juggling more than 2 or 3 numbers around in their head at once. What matters is you aren't a subhuman redditor whining about how elementary school math is racist or oppressive or whatever.
At least for me, the difficulty of the problem is heavily dependent on how the question is presented. If you read it to me once, I'd get it wrong for sure because I'd have forgotten the numbers before I realized what I was supposed to look for. If you watched me try to solve it, I would panic and fuck up like the mice in a glass maze. But being able to reread the problem and do it at my own pace? Manageable.
 
I just hated long division. Always checking, always wondering if that fucking remainder is supposed to be there, and the knowledge I'd probably never do division that much ever again compared to addition, subtraction, and multiplication. So hey, they gave me multiple choice answers to work with.

Wait, you had a literal multiple choice problems when you were still learning multiplication/division? I thought maybe you would just guess until you ballparked the correct number. And I assumed this was at least a polynomial with double negatives or something.

Ok I won't call you a genius, but I'll call you a big fish in a small pond. You were clearly paying attention to the relationship between multiplication and division enough to manipulate them to your needs, and the teacher is a tard if they can't even grade that by hand. And if the teacher is a tard, I don't expect much of your former peers.


At least for me, the difficulty of the problem is heavily dependent on how the question is presented. If you read it to me once, I'd get it wrong for sure because I'd have forgotten the numbers before I realized what I was supposed to look for. If you watched me try to solve it, I would panic and fuck up like the mice in a glass maze. But being able to reread the problem and do it at my own pace? Manageable.
I never learned long division. I remember being in 4th grade, I remember being able to get the correct answers; but the whole order of operations with the add/subtract/mutliply/bring down or whatever the fuck it was... nah, didn't get it. Can I divide, abso-fucking-lutely... can I do school house long division... oh fuck no man, gun to the head I'm gonna die.
 
How is 1/8th not the language of reading progress? People use fractions all the time to tell people how far they are into a book or show all the time.

Also what does metric has to do with this? Do euros not have to deal with fractions?
 
I never learned long division. I remember being in 4th grade, I remember being able to get the correct answers; but the whole order of operations with the add/subtract/mutliply/bring down or whatever the fuck it was... nah, didn't get it. Can I divide, abso-fucking-lutely... can I do school house long division... oh fuck no man, gun to the head I'm gonna die.
That was why I basically gamed the system. Fuck doing all of that.
 
Let's clean up the non-fraction numbers; so 16 - (9 + 1/3)

1/3 of 8 is 2.666R, so let's round up to 3; so 16 - 12
Oh, I see what I did. I think I made it harder by using 1/3.

I was thinking of it as the pizzas cut in 12 slices.
Don't think that one works, chief.
It does.
 
How is 1/8th not the language of reading progress? People use fractions all the time to tell people how far they are into a book or show all the time.

Also what does metric has to do with this? Do euros not have to deal with fractions?
These are the kind of people who think the word "ergo" is "heir go". They are not intellectual titans.

It doesn't. Whatever you think the answer is, I can subdivide every piece in half (or quarters or eighths, ad infinitum), end up with twice as many and all the conditions are still fulfilled.
 
There is a pizza party at Sunset Boulevard. There are two symmetrically cut large pizzas. Joan had 3 slices. Grace had 1/3 of a pie. Norma had 1/4 of a pie. Bette had 4. How many slices are left?

There, figure this out.
Zero, because Grace is a fat cunt that aways eats more than what she said she did.
 
Well, @Kheapathic used critical thinking (how pizzas are usually cut) with my problem to solve it. So, yeah.

Your word problem just implicitly assumed a specific number of slice per pizza and it's not a power of two?

what is this i don't even
I said the pizzas were symmetrically cut. Meaning that both pies have an equal amount of slices. I gave you two definite numbers followed by fractions where you had to solve how many slices were eaten.
 
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