51–60 of 64 posts
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The problem is sometimes mistakes happen in exam questions, from simple typos to impossible questions, etc. How is the student to know that this was a genuine question vs. a mistake?
How can it matter? If its unanswerable, its unanswerable for everyone.
It sounds like the old programming interview questions: "Why are sewer covers round?", etc. They sound like they promote critical thinking, but really they just confuse the applicants. If you want to know how someone thinks, ask them to solve a problem step by step.
i only know from learning about it, but round manhole covers prevent them from falling through the hole by consisting of a curve of constant width. Another example is the Reuleaux Triangle which is a viable shape for manhole covers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_triangle
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> "Why are sewer covers round?" Because sewer access holes are round.
Because the manufacturer was cutting corners. ;-)
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-wendys-burgers-square...
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> Then there are the questions that, at first sight, do not seem to have all the information, yet they do. I love the following problem, in a similar vein: There are two chosen natural numbers x and y, both between 1 and 100. Two smart people, Alice and Bob, are told this fact, and Alice is secretly told x*y, and Bob is secretly told x+y, and they are also told who knows what. Then the following conversation happens:…
Before anyone else gets lost trying to solve this, the parent posted the puzzle incorrectly. The correct limits on the numbers are that: - Each of them is greater than 1, but their sum is less than 100
y > x is the last constraint
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There still isn't an answer to the problem.
Sure - in the form of bounds (older than...younger than). This is all about students being taught by rote, with right answers all neat and pat and solvable. Folks educated like that have a problem with questions like this one. Folks who can 'think outside the box' have no issue at all with uncertainty in the answer. Similarly, folks posting here who can or cannot see that this question is interesting and solvable (do…
I certainly couldn't have done that.
One of the answers was "must be an adult", which still sets bounds. That sounds like a much more reasonable answer for an 11 year old, while it sounds like you think it's reasonable to require a tighter range. Why?
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Read the article - there are several clues, and bounds can be calculated.
I read the article. The question is stated to be > "If a ship had 26 sheep and 10 goats onboard, how old is the ship's captain?" What 'clue' did I miss? The only other information is some speculation from a Weibo commenter who thinks that 26 sheep + 10 goats = 7700kgs. I supposed you could argue that these 5th grade students should know the minimum age required to have a commercial boat licence, but I couldn't tell y…
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Before anyone else gets lost trying to solve this, the parent posted the puzzle incorrectly. The correct limits on the numbers are that: - Each of them is greater than 1, but their sum is less than 100
Still not all the information according to this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sum_and_Product_Puzzle y > x is the last constraint
This sounds like a messed up variant of an actual solvable old riddle that goes something like: "Imagine that that you are the captain of a ship, there are 26 sheep and 10 goat on board... " ... go on for about 2 minutes talking about how the ship stops in different ports and how number of respective animals change... Add another animals as well, make the listener assume that they need to keep the count in their head…
So what is the solution?
This sounds like a messed up variant of an actual solvable old riddle that goes something like: "Imagine that that you are the captain of a ship, there are 26 sheep and 10 goat on board... " ... go on for about 2 minutes talking about how the ship stops in different ports and how number of respective animals change... Add another animals as well, make the listener assume that they need to keep the count in their head…
(Ok, I will be that guy.) So what is the solution?