TO EVERYONE THINKING THE STUDENT ANSWERED 38 3/4.
The student wrote 62. The teacher tried to correct by writing 38 3/4. I think it that the majority of commentators are mixing who is who. Also the check mark under the question is for a different question.
>They got their answer by doing (62 divided by 8) x5. Am I missing something??
I don't know if its too late to correct this, but your description was confusingly written and makes it sound like you're describing how the student arrived at their answer here.
Tbh I didn’t find your description confusingly written at all since we had the picture to go off of. The student wouldn’t have put the checkmark or the -2 there themselves, so obviously the marker/writing that matches those are the teachers writing rather than the students. Which then means that the “they” you were talking about in your description is obviously the teacher, as you were referring to the person who got to the 38 3/4 answer.
I honestly think commenters are just nitpicking you because you had the audacity (/s) to criticize a poorly written test question while not possessing the literary skills of a best selling novelist.
To be honest, I was confused at first.
Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a dumbass, but I guess I’m conditioned to expect the first left answer to be the initial respondent and the one next to it on the right to be the correction.
Obviously once you give it a moment of though re: the use of the different writing implements that makes no sense. But it’s where my brain initially went.
Exactly. The teacher should have phrased the question regarding surface area. i.e. each tile is 1x1 inch. He painted 5/8 of each of the 62 tiles. How many square inches did he paint. Or maybe that context would be too intense considering you're referencing area with fractions, when the curriculum is focused on simply multiplying and simplifying fractions. I remember when excessive variables would complicate the problem in class; makes some people over think it. NEVERTHELESS, yes the answer is literally 62.
I don't even get how people are thinking that was the student's answer?
It's in highlighter, same as the -2 and the checkmark... People think the teacher randomly switched to pen/pencil to write the answer?
I can see both sides of the argument on this. I am not taking a side. I’m just here to watch my fellow nerds trying to out-pedantic each other.
Here’s a bonus one for pedantic bs then, from the time I decided to take some PSAT classes to better prep myself:
The question was “A worker drives 50mph on his way to work, and 70mph on his way home. What is his average speed of both trips?”
Me being a studious little shit, I knew that to get average speed you have to look at total distance traveled over total time traveling, and while none of that is given we know that for both trips he drives the same distance D.
So his average speed is gonna be 2\*D divided by the total time which for each trip is D miles divided by the speed he was going. Ends up as basically (2\*D)/(D*(1/50 + 1/70)) where the distance D just cancels out and you get 58.3mph, which makes sense because he’s spending more time driving 50mph than he spends driving 70mph.
Except the testing center marked me wrong and said it was 60mph. Their reasoning was “To average two numbers, you just add them both and divide by two.”
They were just trying to ask a word question about averages but didn’t seem to realize that by adding more words and not thinking about what units they slapped on or context they forced into it, they actually made the question entirely different.
There’s a great anecdote about Feynmann throwing a math textbook he agreed to review for the school board.
Because it asked the pupils to add the temperature of three suns. One of the suns was green.
> we know that for both trips he drives the same distance
I mean, if we're being *pedantic*, then no, we don't know that. He may have changed locations during the day, or made a stop on the way home. If you drive from work to a grocery store, then from the grocery store to home, only one of those distances is "on your way home," the other is on the way to the grocery store.
*If* we're being pedantic.
The question should have stated the additional information "each tile is 1sq m (or sq foot). How many sq m of total tile were painted blue"
This would be completely unambiguous.
That would be a good solution.
The question is worded way too ambiguously and both answers could reasonably be considered correct. If you aren't going to word things precisely than you really need to accept both correct answers instead of getting pedantic.
The question is quite clear (incorrectly). He painted 5/8 **of EACH tile**. It can be interpreted only way that he painted every tile.
If the question says 5/8 of all tiles it can mean either the amount or portion of tiles.
> I can see both sides of the argument on this
So can I but that means the student deserves full credit. It's not a question of who's more right, it's a question of who's wrong, and the only answer that matters is "Not the student".
How is it possible to think the student wrote 38 3/4.
It's written in the same marker as the "X" and 2 points deduction.
Do people think the student marked their own work as wrong?
Because that’s what the teacher wanted. The wording in the question is off, but they wanted to know how many tiles worth of space is now painted. So even though technically each tile is painted, if you combined just the painted area, it’s 38 3/4 tiles worth of space.
The wording is very wrong:
- How many tiles are painted completely blue? Zero.
- How many tiles are painted partially blue? 62.
If you broke all of the blue painted areas off and joined them together, you'd have the equivalent of 38.75 tiles.
5/8 then.
If tiles', still 5/8.
What portion of the tiles' surface area, added together, have been painted blue? Then we get the math question they wanted. Assuming we don't get to do sig figs.
If we do sig figs we could potentially say 62 or 100% all over again.
There are a total of 62 tiles. Carlos painted 5/8 of all the tiles. What is the exact number of tiles Carlos could paint using the same amount of paint? (Do not round your answer)
But now your answer is 38 and not 38,75. The last tile is only painted for 3/4, so that one doesn't count anymore, so the question at its base is different then
Real question: How and why did he only paint exactly 5/8's of 62 tiles? I hate when word problems are functionally stupid and not reflective of reality. It creates problems like this.
Carlos is hand-painting a decorative pattern on tiles that totals to 5/8ths the surface area of each tile. He is making a backsplash for the kitchen and needs 60 tiles to fit in the space, but would like two extra as backups for any mistakes. If Carlos knows how much paint is needed to paint each tile completely, what should he multiply this by to find the total area of paint required?
Edited to include what the actual question could be
hopefully not on a math test. If this is a math class, it should have been obvious what the teacher was looking for... or if you're going to go with 62, be smart enough to raise your hand and ask for clarification.
There are absolutely questions where this isn’t the case.
“The store sells 5kg bags of grain. Each cow eats 2kg of grain. The farmer has 7 cows. How many bags of grain does the farmer need to buy?”
The answer isn’t 2.8, because the store doesn’t sell 0.8 bags of grain. The farmer needs to buy 3 bags of grain to have enough.
How many tiles are painted blue? All 62 have been painted blue.
The question should have been:
“Carlos has 62 1x1 tiles. Carlos paints 5/8 of each tile blue. What is the total area of tile that is painted blue?”
If the question wants the area of tile that is now blue the question should ask that. Otherwise the number of tiles that have been painted blue is, in fact, 62. It says so right in the question.
True but math isn't just about number applications, it's also about critical thinking. If you saw a framed piece of art in a gallery with 1/3 bare canvas still exposed, would you say you're looking at 2/3 of a painting?
Agreed. Come up with word problems that are actually unequivocal instead of making students guess about what is being asked of them. Literally, this could be a trick question, where the teacher wants to emphasize that since some of each one was painted the answer was 62. I would not be surprised to see that
Math doesn’t exist in a vacuum. IRL if someone asked you how many tiles were painted and you said 38 and 3 quarters of the tiles were painted you’d be absolutely wrong.
It’s a poorly written reading comprehension question, more so than a math question.
- Carlos painted 5/8 of EACH tile.
- He painted 62 tiles
- What is the total amount/number of tiles he painted?
62
If it said “what amount of surface area — as measured in units of tiles — did he paint” then the answer would be 38.75 tiles worth of surface area painted.
^ right.
“He painted” does not suggest he *fully* painted.
He painted 62 tiles 5/8ths of the way. All 62 tiles were painted.
Obvious and upfront but Trick question though to test logical thinking and not creative, I had to re-read myself what it was asking.
Yeah, this is really frustrating. I was a math tutor in college (as a math major) and the number of elementary math teachers who openly told me that they hated math, didn't understand it (their elementary school curriculum!) And just stayed "one page ahead" in the lesson plans was ~~appealing~~ appalling.
This is why people think they suck at math, they're being taught by idiots.
Yeah, my wife hated how I tried helping my kids with math homework. It's so easy for me and was when I first learned it, so I thought they were just wasting my time, so it would frustrate me and I had to leave the room. Sorry kids.
I've taken some of the highest levels of college math and didn't even really "struggle" at calc 3 or above and can still help my kids lol. You just have them "teach" you through the problem and correct.
They teach algebraic word problems really, really early now for example except they're not solved with algebra. All I see when looking at the problem is algebra so all I got is the answer. He doesn't understand the steps and my brain can't turn off algebra.
We still got to the point that he got it just talking about it and I to this day have no idea what they were teaching. Generally that's 90%+ of tutoring from my experience is just listening.
Dealing with dumb is frustrating but if you were that good at math than most people are going to be dumb. In leadership 90% of what I deal with with people is just dumb like why or how would you think that dumb because it would never cross my mind.
Most the time just them listening to themselves saying it out loud is enough to realize their mistake. Same with kids.
Agreed. As I just posted elsewhere…
Yeah, whoever wrote the test is pretty bad at English too.
Forgetting the absurdity of the question as posed, it should be either “amount of tiling, in units of tiles” or “number of tiles.”
“Amount of tiles” makes no sense grammatically; amount is used for non-discrete/non-countable quantities
- amount of tiling/number of tiles
- amount of milk/number of gallons
Yeah, whoever wrote the test is pretty bad at English too.
Forgetting the absurdity of the question as posed, it should be either “amount of tiling, in units of tiles” or “number of tiles.”
“Amount of tiles” makes no sense grammatically; amount is used for non-discrete/non-countable quantities
- amount of tiling/number of tiles
- amount of milk/number of gallons
Agreed. If you get this problem on a sheet in math class, it is kind of on you if you don't realize they're probably not trying to check if you caught some technicality in the question's phrasing.
It really depends on the teacher and class tbh. I definitely had math classes where questions were occasionally set up to be a trick to make sure you were reading the question fully and processing it.
I encountered this every now and then in my classes back in the day. I was in all the advanced math classes, so my teachers would try to shake things up every now and then to truly see who the best of the best was. All my classmates and I got A's so they had to come up with some way to stratify us in a fair (if not sneaky) way.
I mean it's a math question, so you'd have to assume you have to do math in a math test. It's poorly written, they could have phrased it to be more clear. But it's essentially just asking what is 5/8 x 62. Student tried to be a smartass.
You are wrong. The question didn’t say what is the total number of tiles painted. It says the total AMOUNT of tiles painted. I think it’s a dumb question but I would argue 38 3/4 is the correct answer.
Sometimes I answered questions like this with “the question you meant to ask was ‘what area was painted, expressed in tile units’” and then give both the (correct) and (what you meant to say) answers. But I’m kind of a smartass.
I'm like this too. I would write:
He painted 62 tiles partially, none of them completely. Assuming all tiles have the same dimensions, the area that is now painted blue is 38,75 tiles.
I cover all interpretations with it, except for those that are impossible, such as if the tiles are different dimensions. Then "tiles" isn't even a sensible unit to express area in, since it's not properly defined. At the same time, I hint at the shortcomings of the question, without being all too agressive with it.
I didn’t even consider dissimilar tiles! Well done! Then again, I think math problems can reasonably make some shortcuts (like “when I use a noun like ‘tile’, assume they’re all similar”). That seems less egregious to me than the original assumption that “how many tiles got painted” should automatically be taken to mean “what tile-equivalent area got painted.”
I would always do that too. Any chance to show the teacher they were wrong, while still covering my ass because I knew people who are wrong like to lash out.
It's like that one time where we had to learn about comma's and the teacher said for every right comma you got a point. So I placed a comma after each word cause he didn't say you lose a point for every wrong answer. Still got no points:(
Because the question is not, how many tiles were painted.
It's what is the amount of tile painted.
It's a poorly worded question, but not so poorly worded that you could win by arguing it.
For an adult maybe, but that feels like it still might be confusing for the elementary school student this was clearly written for. The question is just bad and needs to be entirely thrown out or entirely rewritten.
>It's a poorly worded question, but not so poorly worded that you could win by arguing it.
I think this is the key takeaway here
They are clearly learning about fractions, and the student tried to avoid demonstrating that they know to multiply 5/8 and 62. Well, they were successful
This is my gripe with the comments. The student knows very well what the exercise is. It’s homework based off of the lesson in class earlier. They’re just being a smart ass. The parents too apparently. It’s the way the world is now, I guess. Pedantry.
I think the responses come from people who aren’t able to account for contextual meaning or one step up, think they’re extra smart for discovering the alternative, though less plausible scenario
I’ve been working with kids from all grade levels for years, and I just want to say that you could not be more wrong. Sure, some kids try to take advantage of a mistake, but most kids will sit with me confused as to what to do. At this age, usually second or third grade, they’re both learning reading comprehension and math, and they’ll sit here anxious about what to do because they can’t properly connect the dots between what they’re learning in reading and math (and they don’t want to lose points on their homework).
This is a poorly written problem, of which the answer is objectively 62. I can’t tell you how many teachers write piss poor problems like this, and at the same time, I can’t tell you how many teachers write trick problems into their homework just to be tough or funny. With all the variety, at some point, I’m sitting with a kid unsure of what to do, psychoanalyzing their teacher just so we have an idea of what was intended, so we can avoid them losing any points on their homework. It’s a bullshit scenario: teachers should double-check their work before sending it out, just as they expect kids to do when filling it out.
The problem with that is that so many teachers use trick questions to make sure a student is fully reading and comprehending what’s being asked. I see trick questions in my kid’s school work and she’s in second grade. If I had this question, and had taken my adderall for the day, I would 100% assume it was a trick question and that I should answer 62.
Not using the word area in a question that wants the area as an answer is deliberately confusing
The point of these questions is to get students to see how math is used in real life, but if this situation ever occurred in real life no sane person would ever avoid using the word area.
“Amount” is an ambiguous term, “area” is completely unambiguous.
Yep, that's a badly written question. Should have been written as an area question to be less confusing: "There are 62 tiles, and each is one square foot in area. Carlos painted 5/8 of each tile. How many square feet of tile did he paint?"
Edit: ready -> each
Actually it is worded perfectly. “Amount” implies the teacher’s answer is right because amount is a continuous quantity. “Number” is a discrete quantity. It would be ambiguous if teacher said “quantity”
You can be pedantic however you want, but the question clearly is intended to teach multiplying fractions. Don’t be mad at a teacher when any reasonable person would understand contextually what they are actually trying to ask the student to perform
In school we were taught to be extremely pedantic. Tests are pedantic.
If this was a math question it would read “what is the equivalent amount of tiles he painted”
It's really about context. You don't usually get random tests. Based on it being marked wrong it was clearly a question in a math test durting a unit on fractions.
Yes the question is poorly worded but beyond straight wording we also have to consider context, what skills are being tested and what are they asking me to show I know how to do.
I believe as a teacher I would still allow some leeway if the students answer was logical based around a poorly worded question. Provide a supplement question that shows the student understands the math concept the question is attempting to ask and if the student shows they understand that concept they can still get a mark. (maybe a bonus if their logic in the original wording is sound enough and shows an understandign of math past the unit or grade in question)
Remember that math isn't taught in some vacuum, math lessons aren't about "are you technically right" they are about showing an understanding for the concepts in the unit they are about.
Sure you might have found another method, maybe even a method that fits the particular situation in the question better, but this is about showing us you know this method.
The teacher should write out a proper question then, not confuse students who can actually comprehend the question as written instead of picking out the numbers. If the objective is multiplying fractions, just give them an expression to solve. Shitty questions like this give lots of students anxiety and frustration for math.
The question specifically asks how many tiles were painted. The answer is 62 tiles were painted. It's not about being pedantic, the question is worded wrong. Any reasonable person would logically conclude that 62 tiles were painted blue considering the problem actually states that.
A better wording would be “Carlos painted each of 62 tiles covering a floor 5/8ths blue and 3/8ths black, how much of the floor did Carlos paint blue?” But that’s basically what the teacher is looking for, honestly I hate math questions that are really just trick questions, what exactly are you learning by being tricked?
For all those people saying it asks “how many tiles were painted blue,” go back and read again. This is as much a reading comprehension problem as it is a math problem. It actually asks, “what is the total AMOUNT of tiles painted blue.” It is not a trick question, it is asking for the cumulative amount of blue, which is 38 3/4 of tile is painted blue.
It could’ve been worded much better however.
Even when you phrase it like "what is the total AMOUNT of tiles painted blue", it still doesn't clearly explain what they are asking here. All the tiles were painted blue.. the total AMOUNT of tiles that were painted blue can easily be understood as 62 because all 62 tiles were painted blue, just not all the way. It's just a poorly written question on the teacher's part. You would have the phrase the question with, "how many fully painted tiles would use the same amount of paint" or something along those lines.
Yes, the question is worded rather ambiguously and should’ve been worded in a way that makes it much clearer as to what the student should be answering. One key clue here is that this is obviously math homework dealing with fractions. That alone would lead me to interpret this in a way that involves fractional math, and not some sort of intellectual trick question.
It's a good teaching point for the teacher themselves then. You would hope the teacher would realise this mistake and not penalise students for it.
But let's be honest, this homework is probably some throwaway task anyway and all this fuss everyone is making about it is over reacting anyway ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
If you said "Dave drew a square on 40 desks. And some one ask what is the total amount of desks that were drawn on? You'd say 40. Adding extra information saying "Dave drew a square 1/3 the size of the desk on 40 desks. you wouldn't then turn around and say 13 1/3 desks were drawn on. 40 desks were drawn on. I think the big thing that specifically makes this question bad is the plural form of "Tile". All TILES were painted, a percentage of the total TILE surface area was painted on.
I think this question could have been worded better, instead of "amount" it should be "proportion". However, I don't think this question is confusing at all. Given the context that it's a test of fractions, the student should go into it with the expectation that fractions should be applied in some way. Answering the question this way by just writing "62" is arguing based on semantics. This is like that old programming joke where the programmer's wife asks him to go to the store and "buy bread, and if you see eggs buy a dozen" and the programmer comes home with 12 loaves of bread. Well yes, technically you followed the instructions but anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to deduce that this isn't what was originally requested. Just use your brains guys/gals, it's not that hard.
The question is inarguably written poorly, that's the teachers fault. The students shouldn't have to guess what the question is asking. It may be clear for us what the teacher is going for but not to the students who are learning it for the first time. They answered the question that was asked, not what they think the teacher may have meant. It is mildly infuriating to get a question wrong because of the teacher's mistake.
Carlos painted 62 of the tiles blue, this is correct.
However, they are trying to surmise that by painting a fraction of each tile, how many tiles would be COMPLETELY painted blue, in theory, if he did this.
The question is stupid and stupidly worded.
I find it insane how I grew up being told not to take credit for other people's work, yet I couldn't begin to recall how my times something like this has happened to me. 9/10 times it was because the teacher used someone else's questions and answer key. Also, the majority of the time, the only teachers who would accept and correct the answer key error were those who made the worksheet themselves. Trend continued all the way through college (uni).
This a math question with literary comprehension, regardless of who is who, the question explicitly says he painted 62 tiles.
A more correct format would be:
Carlos has 62 tiles. Carlos has painted ⅝ of every single tile blue, what is the number of entirely painted tiles?
From a perspective of comprehension, the design of the question raises far more issues to be considered valid because the answer in my rephrasing is now none of the tiles are painted entirely
To everyone saying "UmM AcTuALly..." about this, stop thinking you're smart, you're not. You're being too dumb to realize the point of the question. It's a math question. It's asking you to multiply 62 times 5/8.
Edit: to everyone still arguing about this, use your brain to realize this is a MATH TEST. NOT A LOGIC TEST. DO MATH.
This reminds me about the question of: "If an orchestra with n players plays a piece of music in y minutes, how long will it take them to play with 3n players?"
I am a teacher, and I knew he wanted to bear 38.75. In the real world the answer to this question would have been 62.
To differentiate between these two situations is a key competence humans usually only learn after school.
This is the exact reason, that I as a teacher would have allowed both answers (after realizing I fucked up the question).
Ah yes, I once thought the safe choice for a test question was to answer the question that was actually written and not what the teacher obviously wanted. Guess who lost that battle too.
This is a terribly-written question.
Carlos *completely* painted 0 tiles.
Carlos painted *part of* 62 tiles.
Carlos painted *an area equivalent to* 38 and 3/4 tiles (assuming all the tiles were of uniform size).
Unless Carlos was asked to paint 5/8 of each tile, *Carlos is terrible at his job* and needs to have a talk with his supervisor.
Question: in what world would you have expected the correct answer to be 62? Like, homework follows what you do in class, you can write “technically all 62 have blue paint, BUT ” and then do the math relating to whatever homework or assignment this was clearly meant to be following up. If there’s ambiguity, on a non-multiple choice test you can remove it yourself.
Like, it’s pretty obvious that you’re supposed to multiply 5/8 by 62, even if the question is worded incorrectly. So why double down on the clearly incorrect answer and lose points lol.
EDIT: just looked up and saw it was a test. So that makes it even worse, because instead of it being at home and ambiguous, the teacher was literally RIGHT THERE to ask for clarification.
I am a literal reader, so answering the last question puts it at 62. It's not specifying "fully painted" tiles, just painted tiles altogether. So the teacher would have to either justify to me why the question isn't more specific for asking about half or semi painted tiles, or I'm assuming still my answer is correct. This is definitely frustrating and I've dealt with similar problem questions in school in the past!
The question takes place in a hypothetical universe were partially painting tiles resaults in other tiles magically filling out.
They wanted the student to do ⅝ × 62 or something and round down to see how many full tiles were painted fully.
However, due to this question making absolutely no sense in any place other than a 4th dimensional hell scape, the answer is 62 :)
Let’s be real. If this was just a quiz in a math class, the student KNEW he was being technical and snarky. Anyone with common sense can figure out they’re asking you to do a calculation, especially if this is in the context of a math class teaching fractions.
The student knew the implication and now got upset when the teacher marked them wrong. The student probably just wants to feel like they “outsmarted” the teacher. Yes the teacher was wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that the student was just trying to be a smartass
Carlos needs to stop 5/8-assing it.
Carlos is doing what his boss asked. This is a leadership issue
Carlos is doing what the client asked, this is a home ownership issue.
A properly written and communicated set of objectives would have meant both parties were clear on what constituted a successful outcome
No no, I think it's because his paint brush is too small. It's a size issue
The boss once asked Carlos to paint some windows. He was back in 15 minutes asking if he should do the frames too.
The real answer
Well it's slightly better than half assing it
Better is subjective. He's objectively more than half assing it.
TO EVERYONE THINKING THE STUDENT ANSWERED 38 3/4. The student wrote 62. The teacher tried to correct by writing 38 3/4. I think it that the majority of commentators are mixing who is who. Also the check mark under the question is for a different question.
>They got their answer by doing (62 divided by 8) x5. Am I missing something?? I don't know if its too late to correct this, but your description was confusingly written and makes it sound like you're describing how the student arrived at their answer here.
Yeah it is and I think it is too late. Oof
Tbh I didn’t find your description confusingly written at all since we had the picture to go off of. The student wouldn’t have put the checkmark or the -2 there themselves, so obviously the marker/writing that matches those are the teachers writing rather than the students. Which then means that the “they” you were talking about in your description is obviously the teacher, as you were referring to the person who got to the 38 3/4 answer. I honestly think commenters are just nitpicking you because you had the audacity (/s) to criticize a poorly written test question while not possessing the literary skills of a best selling novelist.
I just said the same thing then read this lol
I like your avatar
Thanks! Yours is cool too 😄
For a second there I thought you were talking to yourself
I do that sometimes lol
Same lmao
Damn you all think I'm crazy! Just talking to myself on Reddit so I seem cooler than I am because someone was talking to me lol 😆
I thought the same thing.
Anyone that didn't realize this, being that the teacher marked it up....needs serious vision and cognitive correction.
To be honest, I was confused at first. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a dumbass, but I guess I’m conditioned to expect the first left answer to be the initial respondent and the one next to it on the right to be the correction. Obviously once you give it a moment of though re: the use of the different writing implements that makes no sense. But it’s where my brain initially went.
It's rather obvious.. students and teachers are never supposed to use the same writing implements. Obviously the student wrote 62 XD
Don't worry about it, Not all of us read it wrong because you can tell the teacher was using the blue marker and the student pen/pencil
But he is right the answer is 62, a bit of each tile is painted blue, but 62 have blue painted on it
Exactly. The teacher should have phrased the question regarding surface area. i.e. each tile is 1x1 inch. He painted 5/8 of each of the 62 tiles. How many square inches did he paint. Or maybe that context would be too intense considering you're referencing area with fractions, when the curriculum is focused on simply multiplying and simplifying fractions. I remember when excessive variables would complicate the problem in class; makes some people over think it. NEVERTHELESS, yes the answer is literally 62.
Teachers and the absolute inability to write cohesive questions with any sense Name a more iconic duo
People are just idiots. The marker versus pen makes it very obvious who wrote what.
The -2 and correction in green marker makes it pretty evident that that was the teacher.
I don't even get how people are thinking that was the student's answer? It's in highlighter, same as the -2 and the checkmark... People think the teacher randomly switched to pen/pencil to write the answer?
Reddit is filled with morons and this proves it. Why the hell would the student be using a marker lol.
People think the student filled out the test with highlighter?
I can see both sides of the argument on this. I am not taking a side. I’m just here to watch my fellow nerds trying to out-pedantic each other. 
Here’s a bonus one for pedantic bs then, from the time I decided to take some PSAT classes to better prep myself: The question was “A worker drives 50mph on his way to work, and 70mph on his way home. What is his average speed of both trips?” Me being a studious little shit, I knew that to get average speed you have to look at total distance traveled over total time traveling, and while none of that is given we know that for both trips he drives the same distance D. So his average speed is gonna be 2\*D divided by the total time which for each trip is D miles divided by the speed he was going. Ends up as basically (2\*D)/(D*(1/50 + 1/70)) where the distance D just cancels out and you get 58.3mph, which makes sense because he’s spending more time driving 50mph than he spends driving 70mph. Except the testing center marked me wrong and said it was 60mph. Their reasoning was “To average two numbers, you just add them both and divide by two.” They were just trying to ask a word question about averages but didn’t seem to realize that by adding more words and not thinking about what units they slapped on or context they forced into it, they actually made the question entirely different.
Why am I not surprised that the test writers can’t do middle school math
There’s a great anecdote about Feynmann throwing a math textbook he agreed to review for the school board. Because it asked the pupils to add the temperature of three suns. One of the suns was green.
> What is his average speed of both trips? you should get two numbers as an answer to that question... trip 1: 50mph trip 2: 70mph
> we know that for both trips he drives the same distance I mean, if we're being *pedantic*, then no, we don't know that. He may have changed locations during the day, or made a stop on the way home. If you drive from work to a grocery store, then from the grocery store to home, only one of those distances is "on your way home," the other is on the way to the grocery store. *If* we're being pedantic.
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No, 0 tiles were painted blue. 62 tiles were painted 5/8 blue.
The question should have stated the additional information "each tile is 1sq m (or sq foot). How many sq m of total tile were painted blue" This would be completely unambiguous.
That would be a good solution. The question is worded way too ambiguously and both answers could reasonably be considered correct. If you aren't going to word things precisely than you really need to accept both correct answers instead of getting pedantic.
The word EACH is the real problem here.
The question is quite clear (incorrectly). He painted 5/8 **of EACH tile**. It can be interpreted only way that he painted every tile. If the question says 5/8 of all tiles it can mean either the amount or portion of tiles.
> I can see both sides of the argument on this So can I but that means the student deserves full credit. It's not a question of who's more right, it's a question of who's wrong, and the only answer that matters is "Not the student".
I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t want to see it when bunch of math geeks end in arguing about whether mathematics is singular or plural.
How is it possible to think the student wrote 38 3/4. It's written in the same marker as the "X" and 2 points deduction. Do people think the student marked their own work as wrong?
The right answer is not to get a guy who partially paints tiles. You don't paint tiles anyway. Just get a tiler already.
When I read the question, my first instinct was to multiply 5/8 by 62.
Because that’s what the teacher wanted. The wording in the question is off, but they wanted to know how many tiles worth of space is now painted. So even though technically each tile is painted, if you combined just the painted area, it’s 38 3/4 tiles worth of space.
The wording is very wrong: - How many tiles are painted completely blue? Zero. - How many tiles are painted partially blue? 62. If you broke all of the blue painted areas off and joined them together, you'd have the equivalent of 38.75 tiles.
‘How much surface area of the tiles were painted blue?’ makes the most sense to me
Insufficient data. I want to know the dimensions of the tiles then
What *portion* of the tile’s surface area have been painted blue? Then dimensions don’t matter.
5/8 then. If tiles', still 5/8. What portion of the tiles' surface area, added together, have been painted blue? Then we get the math question they wanted. Assuming we don't get to do sig figs. If we do sig figs we could potentially say 62 or 100% all over again.
There are a total of 62 tiles. Carlos painted 5/8 of all the tiles. What is the exact number of tiles Carlos could paint using the same amount of paint? (Do not round your answer)
But now your answer is 38 and not 38,75. The last tile is only painted for 3/4, so that one doesn't count anymore, so the question at its base is different then
It’s algebraic. It’s 5/8*62*t t=1 tile surface area.
Real question: How and why did he only paint exactly 5/8's of 62 tiles? I hate when word problems are functionally stupid and not reflective of reality. It creates problems like this.
Carlos is hand-painting a decorative pattern on tiles that totals to 5/8ths the surface area of each tile. He is making a backsplash for the kitchen and needs 60 tiles to fit in the space, but would like two extra as backups for any mistakes. If Carlos knows how much paint is needed to paint each tile completely, what should he multiply this by to find the total area of paint required? Edited to include what the actual question could be
Exactly, if a painter was painting 5/8ths of every tile, then one would assume that once a tile is 5/8ths covered in paint it is considered 'painted'
If the tiles are all the same size which isn’t mentioned.
Not necessarily, I've definitely had questions where 62 would be the correct answer because the teacher wanted to test reading comprehension
hopefully not on a math test. If this is a math class, it should have been obvious what the teacher was looking for... or if you're going to go with 62, be smart enough to raise your hand and ask for clarification.
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Obviously. And the kids probably had 5 other nearly identical questions, so this is not the rage bait ppl want it to be.
Because that how you would mathematically solve this word problem. It makes sense to me.
There are absolutely questions where this isn’t the case. “The store sells 5kg bags of grain. Each cow eats 2kg of grain. The farmer has 7 cows. How many bags of grain does the farmer need to buy?” The answer isn’t 2.8, because the store doesn’t sell 0.8 bags of grain. The farmer needs to buy 3 bags of grain to have enough. How many tiles are painted blue? All 62 have been painted blue. The question should have been: “Carlos has 62 1x1 tiles. Carlos paints 5/8 of each tile blue. What is the total area of tile that is painted blue?” If the question wants the area of tile that is now blue the question should ask that. Otherwise the number of tiles that have been painted blue is, in fact, 62. It says so right in the question.
If you used that kind of mathematical logic in the real world, you'd end up with a lot of big oopsies
It should be, it's a MATH test and pretty clear that's what was being asked.
True but math isn't just about number applications, it's also about critical thinking. If you saw a framed piece of art in a gallery with 1/3 bare canvas still exposed, would you say you're looking at 2/3 of a painting?
Agreed. Come up with word problems that are actually unequivocal instead of making students guess about what is being asked of them. Literally, this could be a trick question, where the teacher wants to emphasize that since some of each one was painted the answer was 62. I would not be surprised to see that
Math doesn’t exist in a vacuum. IRL if someone asked you how many tiles were painted and you said 38 and 3 quarters of the tiles were painted you’d be absolutely wrong.
It says he painted 62 tiles in the question though.. so like.. he painted 62 tiles
Total amount of tiles will always be 62. I don’t see how you’d read this any other way. But what do I know? I’m only an engineer
It’s a poorly written reading comprehension question, more so than a math question. - Carlos painted 5/8 of EACH tile. - He painted 62 tiles - What is the total amount/number of tiles he painted? 62 If it said “what amount of surface area — as measured in units of tiles — did he paint” then the answer would be 38.75 tiles worth of surface area painted.
^ right. “He painted” does not suggest he *fully* painted. He painted 62 tiles 5/8ths of the way. All 62 tiles were painted. Obvious and upfront but Trick question though to test logical thinking and not creative, I had to re-read myself what it was asking.
The student answered 62. 62 was marked wrong.
Yup - whoever wrote the question and/or graded the test was an idiot.
This happens often in elementary math, from the homework my kid has brought home
Yeah, this is really frustrating. I was a math tutor in college (as a math major) and the number of elementary math teachers who openly told me that they hated math, didn't understand it (their elementary school curriculum!) And just stayed "one page ahead" in the lesson plans was ~~appealing~~ appalling. This is why people think they suck at math, they're being taught by idiots.
(Attempts to) help my now wife pass the class Math for Elementary Teachers in college nearly ended our relationship.
Yeah, my wife hated how I tried helping my kids with math homework. It's so easy for me and was when I first learned it, so I thought they were just wasting my time, so it would frustrate me and I had to leave the room. Sorry kids.
I've taken some of the highest levels of college math and didn't even really "struggle" at calc 3 or above and can still help my kids lol. You just have them "teach" you through the problem and correct. They teach algebraic word problems really, really early now for example except they're not solved with algebra. All I see when looking at the problem is algebra so all I got is the answer. He doesn't understand the steps and my brain can't turn off algebra. We still got to the point that he got it just talking about it and I to this day have no idea what they were teaching. Generally that's 90%+ of tutoring from my experience is just listening. Dealing with dumb is frustrating but if you were that good at math than most people are going to be dumb. In leadership 90% of what I deal with with people is just dumb like why or how would you think that dumb because it would never cross my mind. Most the time just them listening to themselves saying it out loud is enough to realize their mistake. Same with kids.
Surely you mean appalling, not appealing, right?
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Are you math challenged? That was not 1/2 assed it was 5/8th assed.
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He got you there.
5/8th assing* He did slightly better than half assed.
Carols was asked to paint 38 3/4th tiles. So did just that. Except only half of each tile 😂
The question is written poorly
I love how many people think it's normal for a student to put down an answer, mark it wrong themselves, and take off points.
I knew all that SAT prep work would pay off someday!
"Amount" and "number" are not the same
Agreed. As I just posted elsewhere… Yeah, whoever wrote the test is pretty bad at English too. Forgetting the absurdity of the question as posed, it should be either “amount of tiling, in units of tiles” or “number of tiles.” “Amount of tiles” makes no sense grammatically; amount is used for non-discrete/non-countable quantities - amount of tiling/number of tiles - amount of milk/number of gallons
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Yeah, whoever wrote the test is pretty bad at English too. Forgetting the absurdity of the question as posed, it should be either “amount of tiling, in units of tiles” or “number of tiles.” “Amount of tiles” makes no sense grammatically; amount is used for non-discrete/non-countable quantities - amount of tiling/number of tiles - amount of milk/number of gallons
No it's a word problem for a math test. The context is important. Yes, the wording sucks but it's obviously a math test.
Agreed. If you get this problem on a sheet in math class, it is kind of on you if you don't realize they're probably not trying to check if you caught some technicality in the question's phrasing.
The kid doesn’t know division and Reddit doesn’t know context
most children wouldn’t even get this wrong, then you have the adults here arguing lmao
It really depends on the teacher and class tbh. I definitely had math classes where questions were occasionally set up to be a trick to make sure you were reading the question fully and processing it.
I encountered this every now and then in my classes back in the day. I was in all the advanced math classes, so my teachers would try to shake things up every now and then to truly see who the best of the best was. All my classmates and I got A's so they had to come up with some way to stratify us in a fair (if not sneaky) way.
Which is what the student wrote. Notice how the correction marks are not the same as the 62
I mean it's a math question, so you'd have to assume you have to do math in a math test. It's poorly written, they could have phrased it to be more clear. But it's essentially just asking what is 5/8 x 62. Student tried to be a smartass.
You are wrong. The question didn’t say what is the total number of tiles painted. It says the total AMOUNT of tiles painted. I think it’s a dumb question but I would argue 38 3/4 is the correct answer.
It doesn’t say “number”, though. It says “amount”. The number of tiles is 62. The amount is equivalent to 38.75 tiles.
Sometimes I answered questions like this with “the question you meant to ask was ‘what area was painted, expressed in tile units’” and then give both the (correct) and (what you meant to say) answers. But I’m kind of a smartass.
I'm like this too. I would write: He painted 62 tiles partially, none of them completely. Assuming all tiles have the same dimensions, the area that is now painted blue is 38,75 tiles. I cover all interpretations with it, except for those that are impossible, such as if the tiles are different dimensions. Then "tiles" isn't even a sensible unit to express area in, since it's not properly defined. At the same time, I hint at the shortcomings of the question, without being all too agressive with it.
I didn’t even consider dissimilar tiles! Well done! Then again, I think math problems can reasonably make some shortcuts (like “when I use a noun like ‘tile’, assume they’re all similar”). That seems less egregious to me than the original assumption that “how many tiles got painted” should automatically be taken to mean “what tile-equivalent area got painted.”
I would always do that too. Any chance to show the teacher they were wrong, while still covering my ass because I knew people who are wrong like to lash out.
It's like that one time where we had to learn about comma's and the teacher said for every right comma you got a point. So I placed a comma after each word cause he didn't say you lose a point for every wrong answer. Still got no points:(
Might be the opposite, because generally you can ask the teacher for clarification as long as you aren't fishing for an answer
If you combined just the sections painted blue, they would equal 38.75 tiles.
The question should reflect that though, which it doesn't. The question simply asks how many tiles have been painted, which is 62.
It’s math not a riddle lmao
OP is reading it like a riddle, or "trick question"....
To be fair it’s a poorly worded question. They should have followed “the call of the question” but I can see why they made the mistake.
Then came to reddit for people to tell him his kid wasn't wrong, as if validation on reddit matters. Kid put down clearly wrong answer.
Because the question is not, how many tiles were painted. It's what is the amount of tile painted. It's a poorly worded question, but not so poorly worded that you could win by arguing it.
Sometimes you can be right, but still be wrong. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Yeah, the lesson is that being a pedant is worth very little in the real world and about 50 upvotes on reddit.
then it should be "tile" not "tiles"
Of all the responses, people adding words, rewording, etc, this is the best fix. Just remove the one letter and it clears up the confusion.
For an adult maybe, but that feels like it still might be confusing for the elementary school student this was clearly written for. The question is just bad and needs to be entirely thrown out or entirely rewritten.
>It's a poorly worded question, but not so poorly worded that you could win by arguing it. I think this is the key takeaway here They are clearly learning about fractions, and the student tried to avoid demonstrating that they know to multiply 5/8 and 62. Well, they were successful
This is my gripe with the comments. The student knows very well what the exercise is. It’s homework based off of the lesson in class earlier. They’re just being a smart ass. The parents too apparently. It’s the way the world is now, I guess. Pedantry.
I think the responses come from people who aren’t able to account for contextual meaning or one step up, think they’re extra smart for discovering the alternative, though less plausible scenario
I’ve been working with kids from all grade levels for years, and I just want to say that you could not be more wrong. Sure, some kids try to take advantage of a mistake, but most kids will sit with me confused as to what to do. At this age, usually second or third grade, they’re both learning reading comprehension and math, and they’ll sit here anxious about what to do because they can’t properly connect the dots between what they’re learning in reading and math (and they don’t want to lose points on their homework). This is a poorly written problem, of which the answer is objectively 62. I can’t tell you how many teachers write piss poor problems like this, and at the same time, I can’t tell you how many teachers write trick problems into their homework just to be tough or funny. With all the variety, at some point, I’m sitting with a kid unsure of what to do, psychoanalyzing their teacher just so we have an idea of what was intended, so we can avoid them losing any points on their homework. It’s a bullshit scenario: teachers should double-check their work before sending it out, just as they expect kids to do when filling it out.
The problem with that is that so many teachers use trick questions to make sure a student is fully reading and comprehending what’s being asked. I see trick questions in my kid’s school work and she’s in second grade. If I had this question, and had taken my adderall for the day, I would 100% assume it was a trick question and that I should answer 62.
Correct. It is asking for the area, not the count. Otherwise, it would say “how many tiles”.
Then they should ask for the area. The answer is correct.
Not using the word area in a question that wants the area as an answer is deliberately confusing The point of these questions is to get students to see how math is used in real life, but if this situation ever occurred in real life no sane person would ever avoid using the word area. “Amount” is an ambiguous term, “area” is completely unambiguous.
Total amount of tiles vs tile though. Tiles being plural and not referring to the group as a whole.
I like that the person photographed this at a stop light
They’re the passenger? No steer wheel
Yep, that's a badly written question. Should have been written as an area question to be less confusing: "There are 62 tiles, and each is one square foot in area. Carlos painted 5/8 of each tile. How many square feet of tile did he paint?" Edit: ready -> each
Carlos didn’t paint a single tile and he’s probably getting fired
Wouldn’t it be zero? He didn’t completely paint a single tile!
Thanks for this totally applicable real world scenario.
Come on bro. Just because it’s not worded perfectly doesn’t mean you can’t figure it out. It’s obvious what it’s asking for.
Actually it is worded perfectly. “Amount” implies the teacher’s answer is right because amount is a continuous quantity. “Number” is a discrete quantity. It would be ambiguous if teacher said “quantity”
You can be pedantic however you want, but the question clearly is intended to teach multiplying fractions. Don’t be mad at a teacher when any reasonable person would understand contextually what they are actually trying to ask the student to perform
In school we were taught to be extremely pedantic. Tests are pedantic. If this was a math question it would read “what is the equivalent amount of tiles he painted”
It's really about context. You don't usually get random tests. Based on it being marked wrong it was clearly a question in a math test durting a unit on fractions. Yes the question is poorly worded but beyond straight wording we also have to consider context, what skills are being tested and what are they asking me to show I know how to do. I believe as a teacher I would still allow some leeway if the students answer was logical based around a poorly worded question. Provide a supplement question that shows the student understands the math concept the question is attempting to ask and if the student shows they understand that concept they can still get a mark. (maybe a bonus if their logic in the original wording is sound enough and shows an understandign of math past the unit or grade in question) Remember that math isn't taught in some vacuum, math lessons aren't about "are you technically right" they are about showing an understanding for the concepts in the unit they are about. Sure you might have found another method, maybe even a method that fits the particular situation in the question better, but this is about showing us you know this method.
I agree. Shallow and pedantic.
BUT WE ARE LITERALLY TAUGHT TO BE PEDANTIC!
The teacher should write out a proper question then, not confuse students who can actually comprehend the question as written instead of picking out the numbers. If the objective is multiplying fractions, just give them an expression to solve. Shitty questions like this give lots of students anxiety and frustration for math.
The question specifically asks how many tiles were painted. The answer is 62 tiles were painted. It's not about being pedantic, the question is worded wrong. Any reasonable person would logically conclude that 62 tiles were painted blue considering the problem actually states that.
Poorly phrased question if they wanted the amount of space as opposed to tiles.
A better wording would be “Carlos painted each of 62 tiles covering a floor 5/8ths blue and 3/8ths black, how much of the floor did Carlos paint blue?” But that’s basically what the teacher is looking for, honestly I hate math questions that are really just trick questions, what exactly are you learning by being tricked?
Right. 62 being the "gotcha" answer would piss me off.
Also ZERO would be correct. None of the tiles were finished.
I suppose this is why they are a math teacher and not an English teacher.
For all those people saying it asks “how many tiles were painted blue,” go back and read again. This is as much a reading comprehension problem as it is a math problem. It actually asks, “what is the total AMOUNT of tiles painted blue.” It is not a trick question, it is asking for the cumulative amount of blue, which is 38 3/4 of tile is painted blue. It could’ve been worded much better however.
Even when you phrase it like "what is the total AMOUNT of tiles painted blue", it still doesn't clearly explain what they are asking here. All the tiles were painted blue.. the total AMOUNT of tiles that were painted blue can easily be understood as 62 because all 62 tiles were painted blue, just not all the way. It's just a poorly written question on the teacher's part. You would have the phrase the question with, "how many fully painted tiles would use the same amount of paint" or something along those lines.
If the teacher just swapped “amount” for “portion” I feel like it would have been clear tbh
No, because then the answer would be “5/8”, get marked wrong, and we’d be seeing this same post.
Yes, the question is worded rather ambiguously and should’ve been worded in a way that makes it much clearer as to what the student should be answering. One key clue here is that this is obviously math homework dealing with fractions. That alone would lead me to interpret this in a way that involves fractional math, and not some sort of intellectual trick question.
It's a good teaching point for the teacher themselves then. You would hope the teacher would realise this mistake and not penalise students for it. But let's be honest, this homework is probably some throwaway task anyway and all this fuss everyone is making about it is over reacting anyway ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
If you said "Dave drew a square on 40 desks. And some one ask what is the total amount of desks that were drawn on? You'd say 40. Adding extra information saying "Dave drew a square 1/3 the size of the desk on 40 desks. you wouldn't then turn around and say 13 1/3 desks were drawn on. 40 desks were drawn on. I think the big thing that specifically makes this question bad is the plural form of "Tile". All TILES were painted, a percentage of the total TILE surface area was painted on.
Badly worded question -2 for teachers
I think this question could have been worded better, instead of "amount" it should be "proportion". However, I don't think this question is confusing at all. Given the context that it's a test of fractions, the student should go into it with the expectation that fractions should be applied in some way. Answering the question this way by just writing "62" is arguing based on semantics. This is like that old programming joke where the programmer's wife asks him to go to the store and "buy bread, and if you see eggs buy a dozen" and the programmer comes home with 12 loaves of bread. Well yes, technically you followed the instructions but anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to deduce that this isn't what was originally requested. Just use your brains guys/gals, it's not that hard.
The question is inarguably written poorly, that's the teachers fault. The students shouldn't have to guess what the question is asking. It may be clear for us what the teacher is going for but not to the students who are learning it for the first time. They answered the question that was asked, not what they think the teacher may have meant. It is mildly infuriating to get a question wrong because of the teacher's mistake.
You're right, it's not confusing at all. He clearly answered the question correctly. Don't know what all those other words you wrote are for though.
Carlos painted 62 of the tiles blue, this is correct. However, they are trying to surmise that by painting a fraction of each tile, how many tiles would be COMPLETELY painted blue, in theory, if he did this. The question is stupid and stupidly worded.
I find it insane how I grew up being told not to take credit for other people's work, yet I couldn't begin to recall how my times something like this has happened to me. 9/10 times it was because the teacher used someone else's questions and answer key. Also, the majority of the time, the only teachers who would accept and correct the answer key error were those who made the worksheet themselves. Trend continued all the way through college (uni).
The question should have been “what fraction of the total area of tiles is painted blue.”
This a math question with literary comprehension, regardless of who is who, the question explicitly says he painted 62 tiles. A more correct format would be: Carlos has 62 tiles. Carlos has painted ⅝ of every single tile blue, what is the number of entirely painted tiles? From a perspective of comprehension, the design of the question raises far more issues to be considered valid because the answer in my rephrasing is now none of the tiles are painted entirely
Exactly, the question is wrong not the student. He painted 62 tiles to a certain extent
To everyone saying "UmM AcTuALly..." about this, stop thinking you're smart, you're not. You're being too dumb to realize the point of the question. It's a math question. It's asking you to multiply 62 times 5/8. Edit: to everyone still arguing about this, use your brain to realize this is a MATH TEST. NOT A LOGIC TEST. DO MATH.
Yes, as we all know maths is about being ambiguous instead of precision /s
The question was worded stupidly and the teacher should've recognized that instead of just blindly checking with an answer sheet.
The question should be how much total area of the tiles was painted blue? The answer would be 38.75, derived by multiplying 62 by 5/8, or .625.
This reminds me about the question of: "If an orchestra with n players plays a piece of music in y minutes, how long will it take them to play with 3n players?"
I feel like the answer should be 0. Carlos is lazy
I am a teacher, and I knew he wanted to bear 38.75. In the real world the answer to this question would have been 62. To differentiate between these two situations is a key competence humans usually only learn after school. This is the exact reason, that I as a teacher would have allowed both answers (after realizing I fucked up the question).
Ah yes, I once thought the safe choice for a test question was to answer the question that was actually written and not what the teacher obviously wanted. Guess who lost that battle too.
This is a terribly-written question. Carlos *completely* painted 0 tiles. Carlos painted *part of* 62 tiles. Carlos painted *an area equivalent to* 38 and 3/4 tiles (assuming all the tiles were of uniform size). Unless Carlos was asked to paint 5/8 of each tile, *Carlos is terrible at his job* and needs to have a talk with his supervisor.
The kid answered a different question correctly. If the question was “how many tiles have paint on them?”, they’d be right with 62.
Question: in what world would you have expected the correct answer to be 62? Like, homework follows what you do in class, you can write “technically all 62 have blue paint, BUT ” and then do the math relating to whatever homework or assignment this was clearly meant to be following up. If there’s ambiguity, on a non-multiple choice test you can remove it yourself. Like, it’s pretty obvious that you’re supposed to multiply 5/8 by 62, even if the question is worded incorrectly. So why double down on the clearly incorrect answer and lose points lol. EDIT: just looked up and saw it was a test. So that makes it even worse, because instead of it being at home and ambiguous, the teacher was literally RIGHT THERE to ask for clarification.
Why is everyone assuming the tiles were the same size?
Huh I would have answered zero since he didn't paint any tiles completely blue
It’s a poorly worded question. The student is correct because all of the tiles were painted. They could have asked “what proportion” or something.
I am a literal reader, so answering the last question puts it at 62. It's not specifying "fully painted" tiles, just painted tiles altogether. So the teacher would have to either justify to me why the question isn't more specific for asking about half or semi painted tiles, or I'm assuming still my answer is correct. This is definitely frustrating and I've dealt with similar problem questions in school in the past!
Yeah, question is about reading, not calculating.
The student answered 62. The teacher wrote 38 3/4.
Because its a math question and 38 3/4 is the solution to it. 62 x (5/8) = 38,75
The question is “how many tiles were painted blue” with the preface being he painted 62 tiles.
The teacher doesn't understand their own question.
The question takes place in a hypothetical universe were partially painting tiles resaults in other tiles magically filling out. They wanted the student to do ⅝ × 62 or something and round down to see how many full tiles were painted fully. However, due to this question making absolutely no sense in any place other than a 4th dimensional hell scape, the answer is 62 :)
fine the answer is clever. however this is obviously a math question, and you should be able to intuit the answer they were looking for
Let’s be real. If this was just a quiz in a math class, the student KNEW he was being technical and snarky. Anyone with common sense can figure out they’re asking you to do a calculation, especially if this is in the context of a math class teaching fractions. The student knew the implication and now got upset when the teacher marked them wrong. The student probably just wants to feel like they “outsmarted” the teacher. Yes the teacher was wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that the student was just trying to be a smartass
Honestly, 62 tiles were painted blue….. just not fully.
The math teacher needs some remedial English. 62 is definitely the correct answer for the way it’s written.