Community Chat

[WenGirl42]

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Actually, it is an ambiguous question. It clearly stated that 49 dogs were registered for the dog show.

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How is that ambiguous?

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I agree with you, @JJsMom. It's not ambiguous or unclear what the problem is asking. It *is* poorly worded, because as you pointed out, the wording requires solving it with simultaneous equations instead of simple subtraction as was no doubt intended.  But the way it's worded makes it clear what it's asking, even if it's not what the problem meant to ask.

[Yardlie]

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Actually, it is an ambiguous question. It clearly stated that 49 dogs were registered for the dog show.

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How is that ambiguous?

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It is ambiguous because it is open to more than one interpretation. Many people interpreted it to mean a total of 49 dogs registered for the dog show and 36 of them were small dogs. It seemed really strange to me, as they were basically giving away the answer if this were the case....but I assumed they were making it easy for the second graders. However, some people interpreted the way it was written to mean that there were an extra 36 small dogs registered. 

The mother who approached the school about the question was told that 

the school worded the question wrong, She was told that the answer would be 42.5, though, if done at an age appropriate grade.

[maestra]

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My 2nd Grade detailed personality would be the one asking,

What kind of dogs were the small ones?

What kind of dogs were the big ones?

Where was this dog show?

What group were they competing in?

....and all the time the teacher would be patiently telling me,

’ that doesn’t matter with this situation’...and I would continue

asking the ‘backstory’ questions...I just have to know the whole story.

I like details but not analytical details.

I just wanna pet the dogs.

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I would have just written in the space, "Don't care"even in 2nd grade.

[Yardlie]

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Actually, it is an ambiguous question. It clearly stated that 49 dogs were registered for the dog show.

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How is that ambiguous?

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I agree with you, @JJsMom. It's not ambiguous or unclear what the problem is asking. It *is* poorly worded, because as you pointed out, the wording requires solving it with simultaneous equations instead of simple subtraction as was no doubt intended.  But the way it's worded makes it clear what it's asking, even if it's not what the problem meant to ask.

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A poorly worded question can be ambiguous. Any educational psychology class or statistics class teaches that the the parameters that are useful in analyzing the quality of an individual test question are the proportion of the students who choose a particular answer to the question and the correlation between the probability of a student choosing this answer and the student's total score on the exam. After the questions are statistically analyzed, those questions are usually tossed out of the test and not used again. 

[sydsgma1]

Oh my goodness people...one of dgd is in 2nd grade. I asked her the question and she answered after calspculating on paper that the answer is 12.

my math professor Dh confirmed. Kids don not learn algebra in 2nd grade..they work with 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction.

[sydsgma1]

Oh my goodness people...one of dgd is in 2nd grade. I asked her the question and she answered after calspculating on paper that the answer is 12.

my math professor Dh confirmed. Kids don not learn algebra in 2nd grade..they work with 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction.

I did did not look at the original numbers but I thought it was 36 small  and?large =48

[LTT1]

@Yardlie@sydsgma1@maestra@WenGirl42@JJsMom

For subtraction problems, 2nd graders might be taught to look for the phrase “how many more?”

so, the problem should be worded like this:

‘’THERE ARE 49 DOGS SIGNED UP For a DOG SHOW. THERE ARE 36 SMALL DOGS. HOW MANY LARGE DOGS ARE SIGNED UP?”

This is not a second grade problem...it is algebra. Somebody on the Internet is falsifying this situation. Second graders need very basic language. Take out the word “compete.”

[Yardlie]

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Oh my goodness people...one of dgd is in 2nd grade. I asked her the question and she answered after calspculating on paper that the answer is 12.

my math professor Dh confirmed. Kids don not learn algebra in 2nd grade..they work with 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction.

I did did not look at the original numbers but I thought it was 36 small  and?large =48

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@sydsgma1 ... Exactly! I can specifically remember sitting in my second grade classroom with fake money at our desks. We were learning to make change from a dollar...basic addition and subtraction.

[Twoaces]

Trenet...thanks for asking.  The big girl is a 13year old golden retriever (rescued at age 7.). The little one is a 7year old terrier mix, rescued at about age about the age of one year while she was walking the streets of East LA, looking for boyfriends!  Imagine the math we would have to do if she had been left to have generations of puppies.

this thread has been hilarious!  So many memories of those obscure math problems.  I mastered most of them back in the day, but I don’t think the train from Chicago meeting the Greyhound Bus from Boston ever made sense.

happy Super Bowl weekend everyone!  Hmmmm.if I Board a Bus at 6p.m. Pacific time tonight from San Diego to Minneapolis, can I be there in time for the big game??

[jannabelle1]

These poor kids! My brain isn't so compartmentalized, but after looking at explanations here, I get it: of the 39 dogs, there are 26 more small dogs than large dogs. That leaves 13 dogs, of which half are small and half are large, so there are 6.5 large dogs and 32.5 small dogs. Okay - sure glad I'm not in 2nd grade, especially with half-dogs! Lol!