Submitted 10 months ago by Mickey7@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4e1356c0-88bb-4620-9340-d063ba584e51.png
This reminds me of a much more reasonable bad teacher from my childhood, which I still remember as unfair
We had been learning the vowels, which in one thing were listed as a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y, among others with the just the five most common ones
So days later when we had a quiz my answer to which letters are vowels was a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. I got a red x, with “and sometimes y” crossed out. I don’t think we were given points but it felt like zero points.
Curriculum and unappetizing methods of teaching are the problems.
This kid has the right to question, to speak out what’s really logical, and is likely to be more street-wise.
This is genuinely baffling. What was that teacher on.
that kid passes my class with honors
the teacher is a moron
Same. Question sucks. Teacher is a tool. Kid needs bonus points for a creative solution.
This always pissed me off about all formal school. They don’t want a good answer, they don’t even want the correct answer. They want you to give them the answer they previously told you to give them, regardless of all other factors.
Real life doesn’t work like that. In reality, the “correct” answer is anything that completes the objective. In this scenario, the answer provided was reasonable, logical and most importantly, it was not incorrect.
This is bizarre. The info provided in the question was that Marty ate more than Luis, the question was how would that be possible given that Mario ate 4/6 of his while Luis ate 5/6 of his. The answer the kid wrote (Marty’s pizza was bigger than Luis’) is the only possible correct answer.
The grader is asserting that the information given in the question was wrong and that “actually it was Luis who ate more pizza”–even though it stated as a premise that “Marty ate more”. How are you supposed to give a correct answer on a test if you are expected to accept one premise (proportion of pizzas eaten) while disregarding another premise (Marty ate more than Luis)? How do you decide which part to disregard? Would they have accepted the answer, “Luis actually only ate 3/6 of his pizza, not 5/6)”? Wouldn’t that be just as valid an answer as “Marty actually didn’t eat more than Luis”?
Agree, this question is such hot shit that I can’t imagine it popping up in any real world maths test
The question is good, how given one smaller and one larger fraction could the person eating a smaller percent still have eaten more total pizza. That’s a fun brain puzzle.
The problem is the teacher.
And by gaslighting the kids, they’re teaching them not to trust their own ability to reason, crushing their critical thinking skills. It sets them up to submit to authoritarianism and go along with obvious lies instead of trusting their own senses and questioning authority.
How ruined the question
Neither is right: written text is not people, and text without people is either right or wrong until someone read. Only people reading can make the text true, also, you’re a moron.
…it’s just a joke, jeeeez.
You know we wouldn’t even really need fractions if it wasn’t for your stupid inches and feet right?
Metric countries have no real use for them
I sincerely hope that was a joke…
don’t worry. they’re only 1/2 as intelligent as 50% of average morons.
This post shows the difference between school and education. The school system is there to get a child to be able to regurgitate whatever the lesson says they should. Education is to develop knowledge as a whole.
It is sad that the teacher was not even able to consider the flawed nature of the question, because they are trained to just see if the student’s answer matches the answer key for the test.
In many cases, the public education system no longer exists to deliver educated graduates. It exists to feed itself – to obtain funding for itself the next year and to support a gradually expanding set of “administrators” that add little to the process.
Look at the effects of “No Child Left Behind”. NCLB pushed test scores above all else. What did we get? A bunch of students that were very good at passing standardized tests. That does not necessarily translate to a better educational outcome. The value in the skill of passing standardized tests plummets rapidly once one joins the workforce.
So this was a trick question? Because the student’s answer is correct. That’s the only way it’s possible. Was the answer supposed to be that it’s not possible? I’m a grown adult and I find this question unclear so I’m surprised this was asked to a young child in this way.
Well the teacher’s answer is flat out wrong which doesn’t surprise me at all.
This is literally a trick question.
No it’s not, it’s rage bait.
The title of this post is disappointing. The given answer is sound and it seems safe to assume it was arrived at by thinking mathematically.
Right? He’s rationally explaining how that was possible given the question of “how” it is possible. In my opinion that question was written poorly.
I suspect many commenters are missing the point, the student’s response can only be the correct and expected answer to this question. Teacher has it wrong.
No. The teacher did not have it wrong. Does not mean the student is right … Marty and Luis both had their own pizza. Marty had a big pizza and “only” managed to eat 4/6th of it. Luis had a small pizza, and “only” managed to eat 5/6th of his. If you want to give a nitpicking correct answer: a single pizza does not have (4 + 5)/6th pieces. x/6th implies the pizza(s) were divided into 6 parts … so: it can only be 2 pizzas.
I’ve read this a few times and I’m genuinely not sure I understand what you’re saying.
4/6th is a smaller ratio than 5/6 the only way for 4/6 to be greater would be for the area to increase.
Expressed as percentages it would be 66% (approx) eaten vs 83% (approx) where the person that ate 66% ate more pizza. The only way that’s possible is if the area of the pizza that 66% of was consumed was greater. (Strictly speaking the volume could be at play here too but I’m going to assume they’re the same height for the question).
I genuinely don’t see any way his thinking was wrong, or how this could be answered another way.
I might genuinely be missing something but if so this question is poorly worded.
Yes, it can only be two pizzas. The question is “how is this possible” which is correctly answered by the student. The teacher talking like that’s not how pizza works, is indeed incorrect.
4/6 of a 10” pizza is more pizza than 5/6 of a 6” pizza.
Ah, a teacher that does not comprehend the barometer
Two other right answers:
And, for funsies:
This is completely unrelated but I cannot believe Calandra is a real world name.
The designers of the video game Path of Exile should’ve called their super rare item “Kalandra’s Barometer” instead of “Kalandra’s Mirror”.
Well the question does assign ownership to the pizza, so Marty can eat his pizza then give it to Luis making it his pizza
correct fraction = 4/5, as in, Luis’ pizza is smaller than the 4/5 (80%) of Marty’s pizza.
The statement and question make perfect sense. The kid has the only “reasonable” answer.
The statement and the question do not make any kind of sense. Would make more sense to ask who ate more pizza when one ate 2/3 and another one ate 3/4 of an equally sized pizza.
⅔x > ¾y when x > 1⅛y. The question helps you parse word problems.
Actually a kilogramme of feathers is heavier, because you have the weight on your conscience of what you had to do to those poor birds to get all those feathers.
Commendable for the kid to be thinking outside of the box, and a bit shitty of the teacher for not giving them maybe half a point (because it’s a correct answer, but not the correct/expected answer). The test maker is also to blame - they should’ve taken care to eliminate all ambiguity - it’s a math test after all.
The kid’s answer is the only correct answer. It’s not half right, or 5/6 or 4/6 right. It’s the only correct answer that fits the question. The teacher is a moron who has no business in a math classroom except as a remedial student.
Marty could’ve eaten someone else’s pizza besides his own, which would also make it a correct answer. The question didn’t say he ate 4/6 of his pizza and nothing else
My wife has pointed out that there is indeed one other correct answer. One kids is bigger – OR, the other kid’s is smaller. TWO right answers.
The teachers response is incorrect. It is stated as fact that marty ate more pizza.
Oh, yes, you’re right! I read the question again.
i can’t fathom this being real, most probably this was made for karma farming or something.
Teachers like this exist. One of my kids had an elementary school teacher like this. Two examples:
(FWIW, in both cases we reassured our kid that they did great in both cases, and that we were proud of them.)
Teacher : draw a triangle with sides of length 1 inch, 2 inches and 3 inches
Kid : but you can’t do that. You get a 3 inch line. Other students proceed to draw skinny triangles.
Teacher : you’re wrong Kid. Everybody else can do it, what’s your problem?
True story.
Also what teacher uses a green felt tip pen?
Ahh, fractions and word problems, the bane of my education (seriously, why do we bother with fractions when decimals are easier to compute and express?)
The higher the level of the course I was taking, the less test markers cared about the actual final answer. If you used the correct equations, simplifying the final answer to a faction rather than a decimal or leaving constants like pi and e in there was good enough for full marks.
Generally more accurate, too, because you’re not rounding the number but leaving it as the true value because 1/3 != 0.333333. It’s better to do it this way if there’s multiple steps, too, since you can gather or cancel out like terms if you leave them as variables instead of converting and rounding to some decimal.
People have already commented on fractions, there’s a lot of math that is way easier to keep accurate by leaving in fractional form as it goes.
For word problems, done correctly, the math is pointless if you can’t map it to more realistic scenarios. In terms of applying math to the real world, it’s supremely rare that the world just spits out the equation ready for you to solve, the ability to distill a scenario described by prose to a mathemetical solution is critical. Problem is when they are handled incorrectly and have ambiguous solutions or parameters, but dealing with kids’ homework, this is pretty rare, though it’s admittedly utterly infuriating when it comes up.
Imo fractions are way more simple in many cases than decimal numbers. Saying 1/3rd is way more useful than hitting someone with the 0.33333333333333… Quick mental computations with fractions are also simpler in this case. Though this question (and questions like it) seem useless to me indeed.
I mean I understand, but in the case of .33333333333333… isnt it actually represented as “point three repeating”
Man, if you can’t understand fractions, you don’t actually understand the math, you’re just trained to use a formula.
I understand fractions, I simply doubt their utility.
who says, 5/6 is easy to mentally understand than 0.83־.
is a reasonable way to start thinking about arithmetics, and basically to start doing simple math IMO.
I had situations like this at least a few times a year in school.
I usually managed to convince the teacher I was right.
And yah this kid is almost certainly ND.
Not just the answer, but the handwriting screams dysgraphia. It looks a lot like mine.
Or the kid just understands the given scenario and prioritized coming up with a valid answer instead of assuming the question is bad. You don’t have to be ND to be thoughtful/observant or to be surprised that the question expected to be called out as wrong that early.
On the handwriting, it could be that, or it could be typical elementary school handwriting. Or someone imitating elementary school writing for internet points in a fake math question.
Reminds me of the stack of frozen mini pizzas you could get in the 80s.
Teachers that don’t accept an unexpected but true answer are not teaching. The test taker had a correct take, one of the pizzas could be bigger than the other. It was not specified in the question. I am so glad I am out of school
This answer shouldn’t have been unexpected, given that it’s the correct answer.
The test key has the expected answer, which may even be wrong. If the test taker responds with something else, even if it solves the problem, it is not the expected answer. It’s stupid.
Kid should’ve gotten half credit at the very least.
It really seemed like my fellow students lost their interest in math as we went through the grades here in the US.
I still remember a kid in 2nd grade who learned how Roman numerals worked because they were interesting. By grade 6, actively detested math.
Curious.
If I ate 1/4 of my pizza and my gf ate 1/1 of her pizza, but the hidden context is mine is from Costco and hers is from mod, who ate more pizza
I can’t find it now and I do not think it really applies here. But someone stated that being high IQ could lead to academic problems as the high IQ learner would understand or see things that the professor could not causing the professor to mark it as incorrect.
I guess this is the idiocracy version of it.
I think this would more likely be an overworked and underpaid situation.
If I were an overworked teacher, I’d still rather award the point. Just throw down a checkmark and move on. I don’t need to write an explanation, and the kid/parents are not going to complain.
A good teacher sees being corrected as a learning experience, and encourages their students to question them respectfully.
Bad teachers see it as a challenge to their authority.
Marty’s pizza is larger. 4/6ths of a 3kg pizza is more than 5/6ths of a 1kg pizza
reasonableness
Every time this gets reposted, everyone misses this first word.
This isn’t a maths question.
It’s asking the student to read the question and make an observation if it’s a reasonable question and answer.
And with the information provided it’s not.
I’m sorry, what? There is precisely nothing unreasonable about this question. It has a correct answer that can be found with basic logic
Yeah, most pizzerias sell many sizes. Both answers are valid.
In fact, i would argue making an assumption, in this case about size, without declaring it, is in fact less reasonable.
But it’s perfectly reasonable for Marty to order the bigger pizza because he is a greedy bastard.
The teacher is fucking stupid. The question says Marty ate more, that is not only possible it is a given.
The teacher is fucking stupid.
The teacher is likely under-trained, overworked, and under-qualified for the class. Common in districts where the focus of the administration is driving down the cost of education rather than delivering the highest quality.
That is, of course, assuming this is a real homework and not some agitprop churned out by a Facebook group or a social media account more interested in generating outrage than education.
“Under-qualified” for the class? Are we really setting the bar beneath the level of a grade schooler?
With the choice of marker, I’d say its rage bait.
I agree, the kid is correct. This is the only viable answer.
Not true. Marty could have also eaten pizza that was not his.
I have an argument like that in my calculus 1 class in college, it was an optimization problem but the professor never said that the optimization variable was a constant, so you couldn’t differentiate it to zero and do the normal process that you typically do. So I just wrote that given that the perimeter wasn’t a constant the area to optimize goes to infinite Givin x -> inf; y -> 0, without loss of generality. He marked me zero we discussed about it and I said that I don’t care because I’m going to get a 10 next test if he didn’t fucked up the question. At the next exam I made some stupid error but he still gave 9/10 for the overall class because he came to accept that he wrote the question wrong and I was the only in the class actually caring and giving the class some dedication.
Korne127@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I hope so much that this is ragebait. Because this is just obviously such bullshit.
The “correct” answer is just straight up wrong; it definitely is possible. If the kid was older, it might have to calculate how much bigger it is.