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.


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

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

 

[Ishtar]

And the part about summer break once you hop over?

Private schools also have summer breaks.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Private schools also have summer breaks.

So back to my question from before, aren't you supposed to be against them because kids spend that time forgetting what they learned? Even if you don't care about your first few batches of students because they're a lost cause, what about the kids you actually think are worth teaching?

 

[Seventh Star]

Oh by the way, a real life application of this shit is not getting roped in by scams like Homeopathy. Or doing anything involving 3d modelling.

 

[Johnny Salami]

Oh that explains everything. Teaching the subject that amounts to sitting in a fucking chair and reading. No introspection, no logic, nothing.

Good job, @VargReallyDidNothingWrong, your math checks out!

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As for the clarity of the question/real-life applications - I can't be the only one that has to extract the important information out of some coworker's rambling explanation or long-winded email. I can't just reply "I don't get it and it's your fault", I'll be labeled as lazy and incompetent. Anyone ever read research articles? Those can be 20+ pages you need to parse through to find the handful of important sentences and numbers you're looking for.

Good lord that first post

None of you actually know anything about education, at all.

I’m a last year grad student and the astounding ignorance of how pedagogical practices are actually implemented and what works and what does not is utterly beyond you.

I've tutored and taught aspiring elementary teachers. Trust me many of them can't math

 

[Ishtar]

So back to my question from before, aren't you supposed to be against them because kids spend that time forgetting what they learned? Even if you don't care about your first few batches of students because they're a lost cause, what about the kids you actually think are worth teaching?

Obviously I'm going to pour my heart and soul into ensuring they get the best education I can give them. And will do so as long as I can.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Christ, you guys would have been fucked by some of the extra credit questions we had back in the bad old days.

Which is heavier: An ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?
Which is worth more: A trunk full of nickles or an equal sized trunk half full of dimes?
Does a steel ball fall faster through water as 62 degrees or 14 degrees?

And yeah, despite some bitching, you DO use fractions and whole numbers in a sentence.

"I put 12 gallons of gas in the truck, used a 1/4 tank to go to town and back, and an 1/8th driving around town."

"Oh, but it doesn't say that he started that day! He could have read more pages!" Just admit it, either you're too thick to understand it, or you're needlessly overthinking it because you suspect it's a trick question.

Funny this is, I have to wonder how much of the problems people have is Common Core (Which seems to make retards) and how much of it is the Department of Derpication rolling out '78.

The ASVAB has harder questions than that one right there, which makes it hilarious how many people that couldn't figure out that question talk about how stupid people in the military are.

Using it in real life?

You know the gas tank holds 10 gallons. It's at 3/8ths right now. How many 5-gallon gas cans do you need to haul over there?

Another funny thing is just how many people who are all "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" are the same type of people who tried to claim 2+2=5.

I saw shit like "Huurrr... 2 factories make 1/2 a factory. If you add 2 and 2 of those factories you get 5!!!" from big brain faggots.

It's straight forward, easy to do.

It's OK if you don't remember how to do that shit. It's been years for a lot of people, decades for others, and you obviously haven't held a job where that kind of work is necessary.

It's OK not to know something, as long as you admit it to yourself.

I don't remember chemistry class (It was boring and the classroom smelled of sour milk) and it doesn't infuriate me when I don't know chemistry questions.

 

[SBG]

For me, it was like this:

First off, the words aren’t that interesting. Skimmed to the last line and saw they were asking how many total pages. Double checked they were asking for how many total pages and nothing else.

30 pages were on one side, 3/8 on the other

30 = 5/8,
30/5 = 6, so,
1/8 = 6,
6 X 8 = 48

Literally less than thirty seconds.

I think anyone who got exposed to common core got their head fucked up.

I’m a factory worker. I guess we have to be practical about shit and can’t spend time looking at problems like this through the lens of how they effect trans lives relativistically

There's multiple ways to go about getting the answer, but I was thinking of how (if I remember right) they start going into this stuff with fractions in 5th grade.

I feel like it can be pretty meaningful to get used to playing around with fractions given how there'd be fun facts tossed around over the years like how women would earn $.80 for every $1 a man earned (because hey they're getting $.8/$1. A woman might say this meant men were earning 20% more than women, whereas a man would recognize you're supposed to take the inverse which would be $1/$.80 which would mean men were making 25% more than women.

 

[Thomas Talus]

Obviously I'm going to pour my heart and soul into ensuring they get the best education I can give them. And will do so as long as I can.

I think a lot of the problem in the education system is that many teachers view the kids at most as props in the glorious story of the teacher. One of the reasons that reading comprehension has dropped so much is because educators abandoned phonics in favor of "whole language" methods, even though phonics actually works and WL doesn't, largely because phonics is a rote method and WL allowed for teachers to feel like they were expressing themselves through their material selections and presentations, while leaving all of the intellectual load to the kids they'd provided no real guidance to. Ditto for the shameful way they acted regarding shutdowns; the mindset was clearly "screw the rugrats, What About Me."

The ASVAB has harder questions than that one right there, which makes it hilarious how many people that couldn't figure out that question talk about how stupid people in the military are.

I took the ASVAB a little over a decade ago when I was considering doing JAG. Most of it was dead easy to me, except for the parts about automotive and electrical that I knew literally nothing about.

 

[Changed later]

I think people are getting hung up on the superflous fluff of the question rather than the mechanical parts. It being a book doesn't matter, the days don't matter. You only need to know that you need to find X from 30, 1/4X and 1/8X.
The point of the fractions being uneven is that you can figure out how to convert them and create the equation in your head without needing to be told (and the demoninators are both multiples of 4 to make it extra easier for you). Of course the question is ridiculous from a common sense POV but you're not being tested on your common sense so pointing out that its a dumb or unrealistic example is stupid.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

This is pretty basic math.

1/4 = 2/8
2/8 + 1/8 = 3/8
So 30 pages is 5/8.
So 1/8 is 6 pages.
So there are 48 pages in the book.

 

[Matt Damon]

There's multiple ways to go about getting the answer, but I was thinking of how (if I remember right) they start going into this stuff with fractions in 5th grade.

I feel like it can be pretty meaningful to get used to playing around with fractions given how there'd be fun facts tossed around over the years like how women would earn $.80 for every $1 a man earned (because hey they're getting $.8/$1. A woman might say this meant men were earning 20% more than women, whereas a man would recognize you're supposed to take the inverse which would be $1/$.80 which would mean men were making 25% more than women.

 

[Positron]

Math tests especially are specifically designed to trick you.

Some "tricks" are very well constructed though and they a student to have clear concept rather than be on cruise control. My favorite is this MC Question:

A biased six-sided die whose probability of showing the five sides are: ½, ¼, ⅛, ¹/₁₆ and ¹/₃₂. What is the probability of showing the sixth side? The answer is ¹/₃₂, although at least 30% of GCE students (Grade 10?) chose ¹/₆₄.

When you’re doing a math problem you have to ignore and suppress the part of your brain that tells you to consider or worry about what isn’t just the numbers. If this were an English class, what Klein read on Saturday would absolutely matter.

If this were an English class, the color the curtain in Klein's room matters too. But when you sit in Math class you enter another discourse community that ask of you another way -- no assumptions on your part -- to parse sentences. Believe it or not it matters in real life: you don't parse your boss the same way as you parse your wife. Your boss asks you to make a reservation for two in a restaurant. You do it. Task done. It is like a math problem. But when your wife ask you to do the same task, you better come carrying a huge bunch of flowers on that day. This is like literary analysis.

 

[Chandelier]

ITT: A lot of niggers who hate math.

In some cases it's understandable. I wasn't overly fond of it, and university directed classes I took were filled with retards. It was a very demanding class and could've been better with half the students in it. As such experiences like that turn people off. Others might not have been taught the right way. My particular school was one of the lowest ranked. So when I see those Russian kids with their math equations it baffles me. It's more of a "why wasn't I taught that?" Sense of failure. It was definitely the case in English. We didn't know how to properly use a semi colon until Grade 12, and yes, the curriculum was that bad.

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.

I confess it took me a minute to look at it, mostly because I hated adding fractions as a kid, but I knew enough you had to do something with those fractions. I've seen similar things on Facebook and people will write out their answers in the comments, revealing common core vs traditional math concepts. As a Leaf, we did trad math. So I still remember the operations. But I always appreciate walkthroughs.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Obviously I'm going to pour my heart and soul into ensuring they get the best education I can give them. And will do so as long as I can.

How can you respond to

you teach whatever text mcmillian or pearson sold your school district. you take a field trip to the holocaust museum.

you use all the skills gleaned from behavioral learning classes to babysit kids.

With

That's all true, but the summer breaks are great tho.

While saying you're the expert on how to educate kids and you fully intend to give kids the best education you can?

The textbook and glorified daycare stuff can be written off as being not your problem, you'll leave public schools behind and let them sort themselves out. They're irrelevant long term.

But touting summer break as a good thing, and not leaving that behind with the public school problems?

I'm under the impression the expert opinion on summer break is that it is bad from an educational standpoint, so I would expect you the expert to be in favor of year round school. That's why I'm so confused at your attitude towards summer break.

What's happening here? Is the expert opinion no longer that year round schooling is superior? Are you balancing educational achievement against something else that you consider equally important to the students?

This is not meant to be a gotcha, I legitimately want to know if year round schooling is considered bad now or something. I haven't investigated it since public school lessons on how to write structured essays.

One of the reasons that reading comprehension has dropped so much is because educators abandoned phonics in favor of "whole language" methods, even though phonics actually works and WL doesn't, largely because phonics is a rote method and WL allowed for teachers to feel like they were expressing themselves through their material selections and presentations, while leaving all of the intellectual load to the kids they'd provided no real guidance to.

I have a little conspiracy theory related to this that I keep intending to post a thread on but never get around to.

The TLDR of it is the people who want to hire and fire teachers based on their race are setting up a public repository of anecdotes from "The Experts" (teachers) about how teaching is racist and we need to support black woman teachers. I never actually looked at the 1619 project, but this project is what I assume 1619 is, just applied to education specifically. Meaning once they get enough anecdotes populating their site, I expect the project to be referenced as as expert resource.

Oddly the articles fell into two categories:
1. Fuck whitey/Support Blacks
2. Literacy specifically is fucked

There are mentions of race in the literacy articles, but they're weaker like "oh, blacks can't afford books". As opposed to "Ignore white woman tears"

I am still trying to figure out why they have such a hate boner for that specifically. Why not complain that every other subject racist too?

 

[Smug]

I really like this question tbh, not because of anything about trad math vs common core or whatever, but just because it tells you a lot about the mindset of the person who answers it. On the one hand, due to a technicality (we don't know if any pages were read before Monday) there isn't enough information to give a definite answer, and on the other hand, due to the contextual clue of this being presumably designed to be a solvable math question for children the answer is obviously 48.

Point is: anyone who is overly cynical or scared of being tricked will call it dumb and shy away from trying to solve it, but anyone (with basic math skills) who gives it the benefit of the doubt that it is solvable will quickly all arrive at the same answer.

 

[Chandelier]

Some "tricks" are very well constructed though and they a student to have clear concept rather than be on cruise control. My favorite is this MC Question:

A biased six-sided die whose probability of showing the five sides are: ½, ¼, ⅛, ¹/₁₆ and ¹/₃₂. What is the probability of showing the sixth side? The answer is ¹/₃₂, although at least 30% of GCE students (Grade 10?) chose ¹/₆₄.


If this were an English class, the color the curtain in Klein's room matters too. But when you sit in Math class you enter another discourse community that ask of you another way -- no assumptions on your part -- to parse sentences. Believe it or not it matters in real life: you don't parse your boss the same way as you parse your wife. Your boss asks you to make a reservation for two in a restaurant. You do it. Task done. It is like a math problem. But when your wife ask you to do the same task, you better come carrying a huge bunch of flowers on that day. This is like literary analysis.

I got 1/32 because I noticed the LCD has a common trend - it decreased by half each time. I have a shit time explaining it but I'll take top hats. I think there was a formula for that, too. Can't recall.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

I really like this question tbh, not because of anything about trad math vs common core or whatever, but just because it tells you a lot about the mindset of the person who answers it. On the one hand, due to a technicality (we don't know if any pages were read before Monday) there isn't enough information to give a definite answer, and on the other hand, due to the contextual clue of this being presumably designed to be a solvable math question for children the answer is obviously 48.

Point is: anyone who is overly cynical or scared of being tricked will call it dumb and shy away from trying to solve it, but anyone (with basic math skills) who gives it the benefit of the doubt that it is solvable will quickly all arrive at the same answer.

I like this interpretation of this thread, and advise anyone who finds it interesting to look up the marshmallow experiment.

No, not the original marshmallow experiment where the kids who could practice self restraint were more successful late in life.

The later marshmallow experiments where they found that kids who had more reliable adult figures in their lives were more able to wait while the kids who didn't trust adults rationally determined there was no reason to wait for false promises.

 

[Ishtar]

How can you respond to


With


While saying you're the expert on how to educate kids and you fully intend to give kids the best education you can?

The textbook and glorified daycare stuff can be written off as being not your problem, you'll leave public schools behind and let them sort themselves out. They're irrelevant long term.

But touting summer break as a good thing, and not leaving that behind with the public school problems?

I'm under the impression the expert opinion on summer break is that it is bad from an educational standpoint, so I would expect you the expert to be in favor of year round school. That's why I'm so confused at your attitude towards summer break.

What's happening here? Is the expert opinion no longer that year round schooling is superior? Are you balancing educational achievement against something else that you consider equally important to the students?

This is not meant to be a gotcha, I legitimately want to know if year round schooling is considered bad now or something. I haven't investigated it since public school lessons on how to write structured essays.


I have a little conspiracy theory related to this that I keep intending to post a thread on but never get around to.

The TLDR of it is the people who want to hire and fire teachers based on their race are setting up a public repository of anecdotes from "The Experts" (teachers) about how teaching is racist and we need to support black woman teachers. I never actually looked at the 1619 project, but this project is what I assume 1619 is, just applied to education specifically. Meaning once they get enough anecdotes populating their site, I expect the project to be referenced as as expert resource.

Oddly the articles fell into two categories:
1. Fuck whitey/Support Blacks
2. Literacy specifically is fucked

There are mentions of race in the literacy articles, but they're weaker like "oh, blacks can't afford books". As opposed to "Ignore white woman tears"

I am still trying to figure out why they have such a hate boner for that specifically. Why not complain that every other subject racist too?

I mean I don’t want to deal with niggers and red tape my whole life. Even if I have to spend a few years in a public school dealing with the rot. My goal is to eventually reach at a well to do private school.

Private schools have shorter summers, yes but they still have summers.

That means I get off for two months. That’s the appeal.

Yes kids lose information they learned the previous year(or at least some of it). In a private school where standards are much higher and parents(if not kids) actually give a shit and aren’t you know in jail, then I will be much more successful in dealing with such problems.

Learning loss is a problem, but you’re conflating two things. The challenge and the benefit-the benefit is I, ME, MYSELF has summer break. The challenge is each year kids will have to have some remedial or fresh up lessons.

As a teacher is it really my problem if students forget stuff they learn when they get into our out of my class? It’s my job to teach and hopefully light a spark or two in young minds.

If I do that, even with a single student I will consider myself a successful teacher.

 

[Matt Damon]

got 1/32 because I noticed the LCD has a common trend - it decreased by half each time. I have a shit time explaining it but I'll take top hats. I think there was a formula for that, too. Can't recall.

It's basically the 1/2^n convergent series or Zeno's paradox or whatever you want to call it - the distance left to 1 is always equal to the last fraction you added.

 

[Thomas Talus]

I got 1/32 because I noticed the LCD has a common trend - it decreased by half each time. I have a shit time explaining it but I'll take top hats. I think there was a formula for that, too. Can't recall.

The gotcha is for people who just blindly project forward from the pattern, forgetting that this isn't Xeno's Paradox and that you need to end up with everything adding up to 1.