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

 

[oh no its pipkun]

sounds like adults are just as stupid as kids.

Challenge them with real world problems then. Not stupidly obtuse word problems.

Nobody fucking go "I read 30 pages, then the next day I read 1/8th of the book" That's fucking retarded and kids who are starting the age of rebelling will just see this as pointless bullshit and hate it for wasting their time when they are already wasting 8 hours a day in the dumbfuck school system.

Holy shit, so many people in this thread need to retake a fucking English course to learn how to read points that were already made.

this guy in particular is really stupid.

 

[Matt Damon]

Challenge them with real world problems then. Not stupidly obtuse word problems.

If the real-world problem you receive isn't an obtuse word problem, it's already been packaged by someone else for you from an initial obtuse word problem.

 

[Chandelier]

View attachment 4602846

That is a mid-level math track. The lowest track starts Algebra 1 in high school (Grade 9) and only two years of math are required which means that students on that path will graduate high school having only taken Algebra 1 and Geometry. Kids on the highest normal track enter high school taking pre-calc and will take university math (Calculus 3, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, etc.) in their senior year.

The low standard requirements are the reason why the ACT and SAT, which are meant for all high school students, only cover Algebra 1 and Geometry in the math section. Note to international students who took American standardized tests for admission to university: acing the ACT/SAT math section isn't an achievement and the Gaokao/similar tests' equivalents aren't very difficult for Americans who have actually studied math.

Pre-calc is a useless class that repeats Algebra 2 material and covers the first part of Calculus AB at a glacial pace. Pre-algebra (the class, not everything before Algebra) is similarly useless. Modern schools slow down math education by two years for no reason, even for kids who are good at math unless their parents fight to have them test out of the useless classes.

Being from Leafland our standards also vary from school to school. It's been fucking ages, but I think we learned basic algebra in Grade 7, while Grade 9 used more heavier handed equations. Again, long time, brain fucked up. My school was not the highest ranked in the region whatsoever. I've always seen American math standards as heavier than us, but again, happy to be called a retard over that.

We learned all the y= MX+b in Grade 10 (also my best year for math, didn't have an issue at all) and grade 11 was pre functions. Grade 12 was vectors. All were based on university or college level skill. Never took Grade 12 math because my grade 11 class was so shit it turned me off math for years. The teacher wasn't bad. The class was. (I attended help classes every day to raise my grades, too.)

Most of the fields I'm looking at are stats heavy, so it'd be remedial courses for me. Honestly I like seeing people walkthrough equations like this, shows the stuff I missed out.

Same, the words in this word problem are an exceptional distraction. If you re-wrote the problem to be about anything else, like counting out metal parts or some other abstraction it would be an easier initial analysis. Because it's written about a book, it's confusing because there's assumptions about likely book page lengths, and the behavior of how much you might read in a day across a three-day read. It would NOT take me 3 days to get through a 48 page book. This almost steers you away from that possible answer even when you attempt the math.

This is an especially cruel problem for 5th graders, and social media bait for boomers.

A lot of them do it on purpose. Whether they do it to turn off kids or infuriate them really does wonders.

 

[Seventh Star]

*Fine print: There is an exception to this rule, the assignment where you have to read all the instructions before performing any of them, and the last instruction is to do nothing. Arguably kids still have to work for that though, reading 100 steps takes time.

Sounds like gay faggot shit for American piglets.

Wait, were people actually confused by this? I've not done formal math in a good few years but even I could figure out after 2 minutes of thinking. I love math I don't understand why people groan when they see it, there's nothing ambigious or open to interpetation - it simply is.

2 minutes of thinking? You can figure out the problem in 30 seconds as long as you dont fuck up the division. I feel retarded now.

Challenge them with real world problems then. Not stupidly obtuse word problems.

If you're anywhere near pharma stuff, these fraction problems come up constantly with dilutions and stoichiometry. It just needs to be explained well to them.

 

[Shroom King]

This is why we can't have nice things:

 

[Pee Cola]

This is an especially cruel problem for 5th graders, and social media bait for boomers.

That last part is why I had trouble believing that the answer was so straightforward, as I was expecting some sort of gotcha. Thanks, social media.

This is why we can't have nice things:

View attachment 4607386

You can't expect society's lowest common denominator to understand a math question that can be answered by finding its lowest common denominator.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

If you're anywhere near pharma stuff, these fraction problems come up constantly with dilutions and stoichiometry. It just needs to be explained well to them.

These are 5th grade kids not pharmacy employees.

sounds like adults are just as stupid as kids.



this guy in particular is really stupid.

Oh boy are we really doing this? Where every dumbass needs to impress internet strangers by declaring they can solve a 5th grader problem? Yes, we get it. You as an adult can solve this basic problem. That's not that case being discussed.

Math discussion on the internet is retarded because every dumbass feels the needs to impress other dumbasses by showing off their elementary education.

Edit: wait a second. Weren't you outed as a pedo in some other thread?

 

[Thomas Talus]

I was reading books with three digit page counts (and getting banned from them because they were "too adult for me") when I was a third grader. Are kids really reading 48 page books as a 5th grader?

I'm saying they would likely have had that sort of experience within the past several years, so they wouldn't reject an answer of 48 as being "too short to be a correct answer."

 

[That Chris Guy]

On Tuesday Klein read 1/8 and on Wednesday he read 1/4, which we will change to 2/8 so that we can properly add it to the 1/8 he already read. This leaves us with 3/8 read on Monday and Tuesday, meaning the 30 pages read Monday accounted for 5/8 of the book. Simply divide by 5 and we can find that 1/8 of the book is 6 pages, meaning 8/8 of the book is 48 pages. Simple.

That's how I solved it. Doesn't need algebra or anything, only the knowledge that 30 pages constitutes 5/8 of the book.

 

[Matt Damon]

Math discussion on the internet is retarded because every dumbass feels the needs to impress other dumbasses by showing off their elementary education.

It's significantly less embarrassing to show off your elementary education than not have one.

 

[byuu]

You need dumb questions to prepare you for the even dumber questions later.

 

[oh no its pipkun]

These are 5th grade kids not pharmacy employees.



Oh boy are we really doing this? Where every dumbass needs to impress internet strangers by declaring they can solve a 5th grader problem? Yes, we get it. You as an adult can solve this basic problem. That's not that case being discussed.

Math discussion on the internet is retarded because every dumbass feels the needs to impress other dumbasses by showing off their elementary education.

No you retarded faggot i'm saying you don't understand that we need to teach kids how to critically think and solve problems. Otherwise they'll end up like you, a simpleton who thought i was gloating about solving a 5th grader's math problem.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

It's significantly less embarrassing to show off your elementary education than not have one.

I don't know. I think I'd respect the no education guy more (not very much though) because his ego isn't tied to solving elementary math problems for internet strangers.

 

[Airbrushed Van Art]

The actual math isn’t that tricky, it’s the weird word-salad that’s deliberately complex. In real life, you’ll be applying math to practical problems, not fucking RIDDLES.

Seriously, the people who write these math problems aren’t just testing your knowledge, but your reading ability.

 

[Matt Damon]

I don't know. I think I'd respect the no education guy more (not very much though) because his ego isn't tied to solving elementary math problems for internet strangers.

Nobody in this thread is bragging about being able to solve this trivially-easy problem. We're mocking the people who can't.

There's a difference.

 

[NewnameRealEmail]

Didn’t read the article but I did the problem and came up with 48 pages.

 

[Johnny Salami]

Nobody fucking go "I read 30 pages, then the next day I read 1/8th of the book" That's fucking retarded and kids who are starting the age of rebelling will just see this as pointless bullshit and hate it for wasting their time when they are already wasting 8 hours a day in the dumbfuck school sysystem.

It's because they don't know enough math for the fun one. In a higher level course you can have it more real world related but the point of word problems is to start teaching you to get information from the problem presented (in the reddit problem that 30 is 5/8 of the total pages). While obviously useful to STEM majors for non-STEM people it's to make them use a different perspective as well as gathering information. It's honestly why we have a lot of low information voters out there who believe in science

Also, anyone who says "they didn't say he started on Monday therefore unsolvable" should go back to Reddit

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

No you retarded faggot i'm saying you don't understand that we need to teach kids how to critically think and solve problems. Otherwise they'll end up like you, a simpleton who thought i was gloating about solving a 5th grader's math problem.

Overly complicating a problem isn't critical thinking you pedo faggot.

If I say "normally my car gets 30 miles to the gallon. But today I drove a rods worth on a hogsheads of gasoline. How many cups of gasoline did I use. Write out the answer in grams based on the weight of gasoline on the moon.

One wouldn't nod your head going "hmm much critical thinking, much logic" any normal non-pedo would think "boy that question was fucking retarded"

Nobody in this thread is bragging about being able to solve this trivially-easy problem. We're mocking the people who can't.

There's a difference.

Dude. Every math question, including this one, gets turned into a dick measuring contest. Still people, 8 pages in posting the answer as though anyone cares

Edit: 2 posts above and post after. Point fucking proven

 

[The V]

1/4 + 1/8 is 3/8. Therefore, 30 pages are 5/8 of the book. 30 dividend by 5 is 6. 6x8 is 48.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Taking a step back from math for a moment and looking at the story presented:

Anyone remember the recentish thread about the tiktoker who was like "I have guardianship of my half sister, she is my daughter, why won't her teachers take me seriously?"?

One question I had reading that is... How would the teachers NOT know the parents died? If the kid stays in their own school, surely it would be local news, and the teachers would know the older sister. If the kid moves states, surely it would come up when registering with the new school.

Similar question here. I can understand a younger sibling not understanding the problem, but shouldn't the older brother who looked at his younger brother's "test" (homework, probably) have gone to the same school and had the same teachers and had the same curriculum? Why the is the brother dumbfounded, he's supposed to be able to help his younger brother with his homework!

Note: Older sibling is not specified to be a brother. Could be a sister or a troon. It sounds weird if I try to fix it.