Math homework help- only yr7 but got us foxed!

tankgirl1

krazykidskate wrote: »

Can anyone think of a practical application for this?
That's what I'd be asking the teacher.

obviously not in my case, as i can't remember a thing from maths at school - perhaps i should get over to the matched betting threads to refresh my memory :money:

krazykidskate

tomstickland wrote: »

I use mathematics at work all the time and find that things I learnt at school allow me to solve all sorts of problems.
The most satisfying is using it to solve gambling loophole offers where I can make profit from it.

Yes i know maths is handy and in fact your maths skills come in handy for me too on the gambling loophole board. I mean this particular maths question i can't see any use for it other than to exercise the brain. I remember spending months at school learning all about matrices, how to add, subtract, multiply etc. and I've never used them since - what was that all about?

BillScarab

I can't believe this is homework for a 7 year old! My daughter is 7 and she's never brought anything like this home.

johnswife

BillScarab wrote: »

I can't believe this is homework for a 7 year old! My daughter is 7 and she's never brought anything like this home.

YEAR 7 not 7 year old,you can relax.

anonymousie

BillScarab wrote: »

I can't believe this is homework for a 7 year old! My daughter is 7 and she's never brought anything like this home.

It was one of a set of "bonus" questions, and I guess trial and error was the method they might have expected.

However, you probably have to know that he attends a highly selective school, they are all pretty bright. I think the reasoning behind asking was just as part of a series of harder and harder questions to stretch them all and see how far they could get.

I tried to explain this to DS and we left that q out in the end, trouble is the teacher didn't say specifically that you could leave anything you couldn't do and DS has a bit of a perfectionist streak and thinks he should be able to do everything.

THey need to be more specific in what they tell the kids I think as they are all keen yr7s and Ds wouldn't be alone in worrying about this.

Thanks all!

anonymousie

krazykidskate wrote: »

Can anyone think of a practical application for this?
That's what I'd be asking the teacher.

Purely an academic excercise I'm sure, no practical application at all:rotfl: lots of maths is like that, just interesting!

BillScarab

johnswife wrote: »

YEAR 7 not 7 year old,you can relax.

That'll teach me to read more carefully!

madison's_mum

I can't believe this is homework for a 7 year old!

I thought it said 7 year old, not year 7. I still work in old money on school years!

Woby_Tide

krazykidskate wrote: »

Can anyone think of a practical application for this?
That's what I'd be asking the teacher.

keeping adults occupied on the internet?

Melissa177

krazykidskate wrote: »

Yes i know maths is handy and in fact your maths skills come in handy for me too on the gambling loophole board. I mean this particular maths question i can't see any use for it other than to exercise the brain. I remember spending months at school learning all about matrices, how to add, subtract, multiply etc. and I've never used them since - what was that all about?

Is not all education to exercise the brain? Why learn classics, or latin or greek?


This is quite a tricky question, but I suspect that the real benefit lies in how you thought to approach the problem, rather than the answer itself.

I don't think it's too tough for an 11 year old, although it does require some thought. I'd have set this as a single question, and asked the pupils what way of approaching the problem they can come up with.

My favourite solution to this is the simultaneous equations from ManInTheStreet - it's not the most elegant, but it does derive the solution entirely from first principles.