An infinite number of correct answers

[lovingboth]

From a SATS key stage 2 (i.e. for 6-7 year olds) practice question...

[Poll #1386206]

Comments

[lovingboth]

Yes, you get a point (or you would, if this weren't a practice question) for any correct answer. But which answer people pick is quite interesting.

[barakta]

Bugger you've hidden the responses ;)

I specifically said I was only dealing in integers.

That's also quite hard for a KS2 child - they only really seem to have started multiplication tables by then. I'm not sure I could have done that at 6 or 7 cos we didn't do tables properly till I was about 8 when I crunched through them rapidly and got my stupid certificate out of the way.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

If you said integers, did you consider answers like -6*-20?

[barakta]

No, you got me on those.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

A useful term here is [[natural number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_number)]]

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why minus numbers behave that way.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'll show you next time we're in the same place. The short answer is: draw a graph of -2x against x and it should be clear!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

It's OK, I don't think I really need to know why. Multiplying minus numbers in my head isn't something I need to do regularly, anyway.

[lovingboth]

Yeah, I wanted to avoid biasing answers. I'll post something about the answers tomorrow or so, but the first five people asked 'in real life' here gave five different (correct) answers.

I was expecting Paul to say something like '120 pi and 1 / pi' :)

[barakta]

I await your answers with interest.

I definitely want to see what the mathmos answered and see if my poor little brain can make sense of it without going *boom*.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I think I gave good answer :-)