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

(Article, archive)
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.


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.

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

Spoiler: Math solution

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

 

[supremeautismo]

I don't know what "physically" learning algebra would entail and nothing prevents you from drawing a diagram of a kid reading a book if that's your bag.

All of this "learning methods/modalities" shit is just cope for having poor logical reasoning skills.

I was more referring to using physical objects to teach counting/numbers. Some kids use a number line, some kids use blocks. They're called "manipulatives," and especially autists get a lot of usage out of them. Most schools are too lazy to even consider it.

But, you know, everyone who learns differently than me is wrong.

 

[Matt Damon]

I was more referring to using physical objects to teach counting/numbers. Some kids use a number line, some kids use blocks. They're called "manipulatives," and especially autists get a lot of usage out of them. Most schools are too lazy to even consider it.

It doesn't scale. You can use blocks to learn counting and probably trivial addition and subtraction, but once you get to larger numbers or any kind of multiplication or division, it becomes completely impractical.

Being able to conceptualize these things mentally is fundamental to being able to understand them at all, not some optional "learning modality".

 

[supremeautismo]

It doesn't scale. You can use blocks to learn counting and probably trivial addition and subtraction, but once you get to larger numbers or any kind of multiplication or division, it becomes completely impractical.

Being able to conceptualize these things mentally is fundamental to being able to understand them at all, not some optional "learning modality".

I should have qualified that this doesn't apply to algebra. Algebra is better taught through word problems because it's more applicable. It's just that, in this case, the question is vague.

I know using personal anecdotes is autistic, but have you seriously never taken a test that was vague on purpose just to "trick" you into picking an answer that wasn't right? How many D) None of the above answers are there just because you were supposed to question how the question was phrased?

So which is it? Assume the nature of the question, or question the wording? I guess because it's for 5th graders you're supposed to assume Klein doesn't read before Monday, but especially within algebra, you have to assume some questions are unsolvable. Those questions do absolutely exist, and no amount of sperging about muh obvious answer 16600++ IQ changes that.

 

[Matt Damon]

I know using personal anecdotes is autistic, but have you seriously never taken a test that was vague on purpose just to "trick" you into picking an answer that wasn't right? How many D) None of the above answers are there just because you were supposed to question how the question was phrased?

This is not one of those questions. This question lays out all the necessary information needed to solve for 'x' very concisely.

 

[supremeautismo]

This is not one of those questions. This question lays out all the necessary information needed to solve for 'x' very concisely.

This is rapidly turning into the Body Building forum "half a week" debate, so I'll dip out. I'll enjoy my magical algebra legos elsewhere.

 

[Matt Damon]

This is rapidly turning into the Body Building forum "half a week" debate,

(There was one objectively correct answer to that question and everyone who disagreed was retarded too.)

 

[supremeautismo]

(There was one objectively correct answer to that question and everyone who disagreed was retarded too.)

... Well shit

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

In fairness to this problem it was turned loose on Reddit. You'd struggle to find dumber than them.

 

[The Last Stand]

Learn it this way, if you can't figure it out, tough shit. Gee, thanks.

 

[Matt Damon]

Learn it this way, if you can't figure it out, tough shit. Gee, thanks.

You'll have to take it up with God for giving you a defective brain.

 

[supremeautismo]

Learn it this way, if you can't figure it out, tough shit. Gee, thanks.

In a way, it does prepare you for the real world.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

This is a large problem with math, it does not use decent examples when you don't need to figure out how many pages are in a book, you can look in it. This has long since been a problem and only leads to rote learning, not critical thinking. You have no idea how to apply these sort of mathematics in different situations.

It reminds me of some vtuber English lesson. They were trying to translate "Is this my pen?" and got detoured with "When would you ever ask this? Why don't you know your own pen?"

But then I remember the worst Spanish teacher I ever had: She was a native Spanish speaker who ignored the curriculum because "everyone speaks so slowly and the enunciation is too forced and unnatural and it's creepy". So instead she spent the semester having the class watch soap commercials on YouTube or whatever the fuck those videos were about.

You read books starting at the beginning. You do not start reading a book 10 pages from the end. And if you did, it wouldn't count as "finishing the book".

I skip the introductions because I'm a tard.

I also skip the dedication pages, which apparently sometimes matter.

This is the point. It’s a maths problem framed in a life situation, so it requires steps before you get the actual equation. You could probably frame this much more simply. And you could also argue that the verbal framing makes it simpler for people who are more verbal. It’s not a difficult problem but any issues with either the maths or the verbal reasoning could hinder a kid from getting this.

Learning to think about why the numbers matter, even if it is obnoxious, is useful for people who eventually need to get to statistics and calculus and need to understand what the things they're doing are when you can't just point at an integral or a t-curve out in few real world.

If kids can't understand math when it correlates to tangible concepts, imagine how bad it will get when math becomes "trust the experts, there's a theorem, it just works"

How old are fifth grade kids in America?

10-11 years old. Kids are generally 5 years older than their grade level, but also birthdays happen.

If you know that schools go up to 12th grade, then you can calculate backwards by assuming the kid will be 18 years old when they graduate. Though if you have to specify "in America", maybe you don't know that school goes up to 12th grade / the age of majority is 18...

Then make real world problems not overly complicated word problems for simple concepts.

I suggested it earlier but I'll repeat it again: We have not seen the whole exam. We don't know if this is an average problem, a tie-breaker, or extra credit. For all we know the majority of the test was straight equations.

And no, the fact that it's not labeled extra credit doesn't mean it isn't extra credit. I've had classes where instead of designated extra credit problems, the teacher just made it so getting 100 is rare and they would just adjust the scores based on performance so the average was a B.

Hell, give the student a recipe list. Tell them it makes enough for 4 servings but you need 13 servings for your dinner party. This is far better use of real world math application.

Divide a recipe into fourths? But... That's the imperial system! Can you handle the screeching?

Honestly, I can't help but think this is how you kill a kids desire to learn. It's badly written question that is more focused on your English skills then math. The "smart" kid that answers this would probably enjoy working on it in a fun puzzle book but on a graded assignment/test they might just end up asking "why am I wasting my time on this? What's the point. This is dumb. This stupid question cost me some points leading to a lower letter grade because I misread the q question, not because I don't know how to math."

Complexity for the sake of tripping up students is how you get a student to say "fuck this" and lose any interest they may have.

You can write good word problems, this isn't one of them.

What kind of kid would have fun doing pure math? My favorite classes as a kid, I only liked because I could use them outside of school to do things with on my own time. And even when I used what I learned outside of school, I did stuff at the edge of my skill level, I didn't read books 3 years below my ability for fun unless it was an ongoing series that I started long ago.

If you can solve every problem without any effort, you aren't interested in the class, you are interested in the benefits of the class. Like a woman taking Gender Studies for an easy A or a man taking Gender Studies for an easy lay.

I wish I were egocentric enough that that I could look at a ten-year-old's math homework and conclude "I don't understand this. That doesn't mean I'm a moron - it must be the question that's at fault."

It would make life so much simpler.

I think you're onto something. The OP claims it is a test, but no test I've ever seen would typeset that question like that or allow me to take a picture of it.

The test would give me space to show my work instead of crowding the whole thing into a narrow column that is what, 1/4 the page width?

And they wouldn't allow me to take a picture of the test until after the thing was graded, meaning after I had already written on the paper. If they are crunching up the question into that tiny space like that then I doubt there's space under the question to do my work.

This really does look more like a homework problem where they expect the kid to bring their own scratch paper.

I don't know what "physically" learning algebra would entail and nothing prevents you from drawing a diagram of a kid reading a book if that's your bag.

Y = 1000X+2500

Y represents gibs
X represents kids

How do you maximize profit?

 

[LeroyJenkem]

This isn't very hard if your job involves a tape measure.

 

[Kujo Jotaro]

48

 

[DocMorbis]

Think what is tripping people up is using fractions to describe amount of a book you read.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Cross-linking a vaguely relevant thread from a month ago. To shill myself, I feel like this post in which I attempt to justify that the act of buying booze is algebra is relevant to the current conversation about how many variables deep should you make a word problem:

The beer problem, if asked in school, would not algebra either. Nor would it be if I left it to an Uber eats driver to fetch as many beers as is possible.

But solving that in the real world with the intention of drinking the consequences of the math? Yes that's algebra, because there's that remainder to deal with, and that has to be optimized.

Spoiler: Alcoholic Autism

In school, if the answer has a remainder, either express it as a fraction or decimal, end of story. It is usually valid to say you are able to buy 3.3 items. I never got asked how many beers I can buy in school, the more usual problem would be reagents and unit conversions.

In the real world, you can't buy a fraction of a beer. If you're buying by the mug, you get integers and have to separate out the remainder and decide what to do with it. Due to the wording of the prompt, I'm guessing the goal is to drink as much as possible and the extra might go into a cheaper beer, like so

$20 / [cost] = [quantity, decimal]

$20 / [cost] = [quantity, integer] + [waste]

$20 = ([cost] * [quantity]) + [extra budget]

$20 = ([good beer] * [quantity A]) +([cheap beer] * [quantity B]) + [unspendable quantity, ideally 0]

A few things happened in the above equation. The $20 is now isolated on its own side of the equal sign, I'm no longer dividing it. Depending on how each person's brain is wired the rewrite might look different, but for me it's simplest to go budget = shopping cart. Moving those variables is algebra.

The remainder isn't being divided by the cost of the secondary beer, that variable has been secretly replaced with a 0 and a goal has been added to balance the two beer types to maximize beer within the allowed budget. In theory it is possible to choose to purchase less good beer in order to obtain a larger quantity of shit tier beer and get even more wasted.

PEMDAS is also in effect now.

If you're buying cases, instead of types of beer the two variables might be the size of the package and the unit cost.

Asking how many beers $20 is worth like an accountant might not be algebra, but asking how many beers you can get for $20 like a challenge sure is.

 

[melcarba99]

Ok, the question is not properly stated: people assuming 30+1/4+1/8= the answer are assuming he started the book with the 30 pages, but that is not stated, so, there is ñot enough info to give a solid answer, if 48 was the answer the teacher was looking for, the question should have stated: "Klein read the first 30 pages of a book on monday..."

 

[Thomas Talus]

A universally needed message:

Having a 48-page book and taking 3 days to read it would be more typical for a 5th-grader's experience, so I doubt that part would trip them up.

The problem is clearly solvable with the information given, and not solvable if you fret that there might be other information that they didn't give you; therefore, it is reasonable to proceed under the presumption that the information given is complete.

When I was in middle school, the gifted kids started Algebra in 6th grade.

 

[Chandelier]

I remember these in fifth grade. I hated them, because my school sucked and a majority of my math teachers weren't actually good at math. That directly impacts students (and now no math teacher where I live is actually required to know it). I confess this did bring up a brick wall,but I did know you have to add the fractions. They were never my favorite.

 

[Megaton Punch]

ITT Kiwis are mystified that an "education" system that intentionally pumps out useful idiots has produced a lot of useful idiots

The main thing I've learned from this thread is that a lot of people somehow still, at least on a subconscious level, believe that government schools are even attempting to impart knowledge in any form