Common Core Calculates Completely Unsolvable Math Problem
In defense of Common Core math developers, perhaps they were trying to create a “Kobayashi Maru” situation to assess how students would handle a problem with no good solution?
Via Twitchy, here is a math problem offered as part of a “Common Core” aligned program:
Via Twitchy
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has promised to improve education quality vastly by pushing for the implementation of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
This year, 45 states and the District of Columbia have implemented the Common Core standards and curricula based on those standards.
Duncan doesn’t much care for the people who criticize Common Core, either. He has insisted that it’s all a bunch of “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary.”
What, exactly, is the content of this Common Core that’s going to make American kids so much smarter? So far it appears to be a slew of worksheets and tests involving various, incomprehensible arrays of squares and circles.
There are also traditional word problems. Twitchy has found a word problem that may be the most egregiously awful math problem the Common Core has produced yet. [Image posted above]
According to the Twitter user who posted it, the vexing problem came from a friend who is a teacher.
The problem comes from a Houghton Mifflin Assessment Guide. It appears among a larger set of basically similar math problems here. The problem involving Juanita appears on page AG102, nestled among some other problems that are similarly weak and crappy — though not nearly as harrrowing as the problem above.
Houghton Mifflin is Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a huge textbook publisher. The company’s website promises to be “a partner who will share the responsibilities” of the Common Core: “We have created a wide range of content, curricula, and services to support school leaders, teachers and educators, parents, and especially students with this transition.”
Is this Common Core math question the worst math question in human history? (The Daily Caller)
Comments
With respect, it’s not that difficult of a problem. It’s a LCM (lowest common multiple) question. I’ll admit it’s worded REALLY badly – being open-ended and asking what the answers “could” be instead of a more reasonable “What’s the lowest number she should buy and not have any left over?” (12, the lowest common multiple of both 4 and 6) – but it’s not a hard question.
If you’ll remember the old one from pretty much everyone’s childhood: Hot dogs come in packages of 10, and hot dog buns come in packages of 8. What’s the lowest number of hot dogs and buns you can buy and not have any left over? (40, which is 4 packages of dogs and 5 packages of buns.)
I’m not a fan of Common Core, but I’m not seeing the hysteria over this problem.
Well, it doesn’t say how many friends she has, just that bags of stickers come in quantities of 4 and 6.
Juanita doesn’t know how many friends she has. We do not need to know how many friends she has to answer the question. We do not know that the stickers come in bags or that they come in any particular quantity. We know Juanita wants to put stickers in bags.
What we know is that Juanita will need either four bags or six bags to give to her friends. She wants to buy a quantity of stickers that she can divide evenly between the bags regardless of whether she ends up using four bags or six bags. She needs to buy a quantity that is evenly divisible by 4 or 6. 12 is the smallest number that meets that criteria, but any multiple of 12 will also work.
It’s only badly worded if “12” is the preferred answer. The number she “could” buy would be 12 or any multiple thereof and I think that is the answer they are looking for.
Twitchy has a link to the whole test. Here is a direct link: http://tinyurl.com/pfrapht
The test seems more a test of reading comprehension and logic than math skill. I think the integration of these skills is desirable, but I’m not sure we need to demand it of the average 4th-grader.
As a reading comprehension problem it is really horrible. I did finally figure out what they wanted but I had to guess. There is ambiguity in the 4 or 6 part as it doesn’t say “She hasn’t decided if she will give stickers to 4 of her friends or to 6 of her friends.” Someone in these comments thought the stickers were sold in bags of 4 or 6. Truth is, we’ve no notion whatsoever how the stickers are sold.
Stickers, generally, are sold in packages of multiples, depending. Some (like the puffy sort) have one sheet, others have 2, 3 or 4 sheets. All can be separated with scissors.
The question isn’t just poorly written, it’s contrary to reality and sane problem solving skills.