{"id":1706,"date":"2019-06-12T07:15:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T07:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.superstarteacher.com.sg\/Blog\/?p=1706"},"modified":"2020-03-20T06:56:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T06:56:14","slug":"are-you-confused-with-this-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.superstarteacher.com.sg\/Blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/12\/are-you-confused-with-this-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you also confused with this question?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Gan ordered 45 pots of plants to decorate the corridor for a school concert. They were to be placed in a straight row from one end to the other end of the corridor at an equal spacing of 1.2m apart.<\/p>\n

On the day of the concert, Mr Gan was short of 11 pots of plants<\/span><\/strong>. As a result, the remaining pots of plants had to be placed from one end to the other end of the corridor at a new equal spacing.<\/p>\n

What was the new spacing between the 2 pots of plants?<\/i><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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How would you interpret the the underlined phrase above (“short of 11 pots of plants<\/em>“)?<\/p>\n

We found that most students would interpret it as either one of the two scenarios below-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Scenario 1:\"\"<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

There was some initial miscalculation on Mr Gan\u2019s part and he ordered 11 pots less than what he should. With this train of thought, the student will deduce that 45 + 11 = 56 pots of plants were actually needed to make up the length of the corridor with a spacing of 1.2m between them. The answer derived from this scenario will be 1.5m<\/strong> (new spacing between 2 pots of plants) based on the following workings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Number of spaces between 56 pots of plants<\/p>\n

= 56 – 1 = 55<\/p>\n

Length of corridor = 55 x 1.2m = 66m<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With only 45 pots of plants, there would be 44 spaces between them.<\/p>\n

New spacing = Length of corridor \u00f7 44 spaces = 66m \u00f7 44 = 1.5m<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Scenario 2:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

45 pots of plants were needed to make up the length of the corridor with a spacing of 1.2m between them. Something went wrong with the delivery of the plants, so only 45 – 11 = 34 pots of plants were delivered. The new spacing calculated will then be 1.6m, <\/strong>which is actually the “correct”<\/em> answer provided by the school.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Number of spaces between 45 pots of plants<\/p>\n

= 45 – 1 = 44<\/p>\n

Length of corridor = 44 x 1.2m = 52.8m<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With only 34 pots of plants, there would be 33 spaces between them.<\/p>\n

New spacing = Length of corridor \u00f7 33 spaces = 52.8m \u00f7 33 = 1.6m<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another issue with this question is that students had to make a presumption that the pots take up negligible space\/length, which is not true.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

How do you feel about this question? Do you think it can be better phrased to prevent any misunderstanding by students?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n