[pianotech] OT: are you smarter than an 8th grader?

[Susan Kline]

  Paul -- it said nothing about cutting off pieces. You're dealing with 
the entire uncut length of cloth.

Okay, think of it like this:

Someone has hand-woven a great long piece of cloth. He started it black 
at one end, ran out of black yarn, wove the center 8 yards gray, then 
found more black yarn, and wove the last quarter black again.

There it sits, all 19.2 yards of it, the first third is black, the 
middle, 8 yards long, is gray, and the last quarter is black again.

I think that the exercise is more in reading what is there, instead of 
jumping to conclusions. When it says "1/4 and 1/3" unless it says 
otherwise, that should mean 1/4 and 1/3 of the same whole, shouldn't it?

The classic "jumping to conclusions" story problem is this:

"Figure out much dirt is in a hole 2' long, 3' wide, and 2.5' deep."

I was completely suckered by that one -- but I was about 11.

Susan



On 9/20/2010 7:44 PM, Paul McCloud wrote:
> 	Somebody straighten me out here.  Each time you remove some cloth, the
> amount left over changes, and therefore the calculation of a simple
> addition of percentages is wrong. If you have a board 12 feet long, and you
> cut off a third, you have an 8 foot piece left.  One quarter of it would be
> two feet.  So if you cut off these two feet, you'll end up with a 6 foot
> piece.  If you took a 12 foot board and cut .58 off (divide 7 by 12),
> you'll have a 7 foot board.    You have to compensate for the fact that you
> already removed a third when you make the second calculation.  Am I wrong?
> 	This kind of question is made by people who have no real-life experience.
> Bolts of cloth are made with repeating patterns, not with some black and
> some grey.  Nobody is going to make this kind of calculation.  Dumb.  And
> some poor kid is going to get it wrong and be made to feel stupid because
> it's a trick question.
> 	Ok, so it's entertainment.   What happened to the show, Are You Smarter
> Than A 5th Grader?
> 	Paul McCloud
> 	San Diego
>
>
>> [Original Message]
>> From: Bruce Browning - The Piano Tuner<justpianos at our.net.au>
>> To:<pianotech at ptg.org>
>> Date: 09/21/2010 9:03:21 AM
>> Subject: Re: [pianotech] OT: are you smarter than an 8th grader?
>>
>> Paul,
>> sorry, 19.2yards
>>
>>
>>
>>> here it is am I'm having a brain fart:
>>>
>>> A bolt of cloth is colored as follows: 1/3 and 1/4th of it are black,
> and
>>> the remaining 8 yards are gray. How long is the bolt of cloth?
>>>
>>> Some of you can do this in a heartbeat, but I'm forgetting my simple
>>> algebra.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Paul
>>>   Ps: the answer is not how much to order for a bench cover!
>
>
>