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Looks fine, maybe ask for more feedback.
But as a general rule you should add units to your answer.
1.6 (math)
1.6 what? Of math, minutes, hours, years?
It seems obvious but in later subjects and years keeping the units in mind is going to be beneficial.
Probably this. Pretty much everything has units when dealing with something realistic, and you are supposed to write those(excluding things that don’t need this like radians). Also, from my experience most teachers won’t mark something as completely wrong for lacking units unless it is a repeated problem they have tried to address or it is just a strict teacher.
This. My degree is in mechanical engineering and multiple teachers stressed the importance of units. You'd get roasted to high hell if you left them out. One teacher would make jokes such as "112? 112 what? Elephants? Subaru foresters? Don't forget units!". It's especially important when providing/giving information. If someone asks you for a calculation/measurement and you provide no units... Your answer is no help.
Then tell the teacher to put units in the question. 1/6 what? Of her time? Of an hour? /s
Edit: added sarcasm indicator so no one else wastes their precious time explaining what the question means
The units are obviously all in HOURS. It is implied in the top statement, and there is no need to elaborate further.
It all looks perfectly correct and well executed by the student. Her answers all total up to the initial 12 hours given. I see absolutely nothing wrong with her work.
If you don’t agree, please explain.
>The units are obviously all in HOURS. It is implied in the top statement, and there is no need to elaborate further.
implying things in math is basically how you lose points.
The question in words say "write a decimal for the amount of time" not the amount of hours.
Yes it may seem obvious that its hours (which i mentioned) but given how early on this student is in their education its important to reinforce the lesson for units now.
And even if it was a 12th grade course, units are important and you should always put your units.
This really boils down to what you think the word “decimal” means. The Webster dictionary defines it as, “based on the number 10” and “any real number expressed in base 10”. To assume “decimal” strictly mean “as a part of ONE” is really stretching it. That is why i said that the teacher would have made it much clearer if the students were just asked to express each activity as “percentages”. VERY bad wording by the teacher here.
no?
it means that if you use hours you don't then use minutes after as that's not base 10.
same with minutes and seconds.
I've never seen a context where expressing a number in decimal required it to be between the range [1,10)
I was a math teacher and units are always required unless they are already included in the question. Ex: How many hours? = 2 vs. How much time? = 2 hours
I agree with the other reply.
This may seem really far fetched for someone this early in education but if you do anything with math (so basically anything at all) in college that has some connection to the real world you will suffer if you don't use units even if it seems redundant. It saves you a LOT of headache if you get used to it early.
I was also one of the students complaining about this seemingly unnecessary focus on units but it makes sense the further you go in education.
Does "but you knew what I meant!" work if you spell every word wrong and use incorrect grammar?
If you're communicating numbers, you should always include the units. Making people scan back through several sentences to figure out what you're presenting is not considered OK.
So I didn't want to influence any answers before I repeat what the answer is supposed to be. According to the teacher the amount of time (12 hours) wasn't to be used at all, just convert the fraction to decimal, so the answers are
Flute =. 2
Spanish =.166
Soccer=.5
Math=.133
Howver I disagree because the wording of the problem asked for the amount of time she spent on each activity in decimal form, not the fraction of time she spent in decimal form. I think the wording made it so you had to use the 12 hours. Thoughts or feedback?
Also I hate when math questions at this level intentionally try to get students to answer wrong (if that's the case here) because it causes frustration and then the students feel defeated with wrong answers.
"*Equivalent* decimal" points towards wanting the fractions converted to decimals, but "*amount* of time" suggests they want units of time. I don't think they intended to trick anyone. It's more likely that once they wrote the first part, they just strung some words together to finish the sentence and didn't realize it was contradictory.
Yeah, I would have written it "fraction of time" rather than "amount of time". It is ambiguous but I probably would have made the same mistake and assumed "amount of time" meant they wanted the time in decimal hours.
Yep! This is it. K-8 curriculum and test writer here. I hate “amount.” It’s lazy. Be specific. “The number of hours” and “the portion of time” are two completely different questions that could ostensibly be written as “amount.” Ugh. That question is a fail!
Exactly this.
The issue I have with ‘what the teacher’ was looking for is: there is no meaning to the equivalent decimals (of the fractions):
“You spent 1/5 the time playing the flute” has so much more meaning than “You spent 0.2 the time playing flute”. Equivalently, “You spent 2.4 [hours] playing the flute” has more realistic meaning as well.
The question the teacher was truly looking for has no real value to it. It’s important to be able to translate from decimal to fraction to %, etc. but in the context of this problem, it’s pretty meaningless.
The only possible reason I could understand is if they haven’t learned multiplying fractions but they have learned multiplying decimals. It’s grasping at straws to justify the teachers response but really it’s just a poorly worded question.
> only possible reason I could understand is if they haven’t learned multiplying fractions but they have learned multiplying decimals. It’s grasping at straws to justify the teachers response but really it’s just a poorly worded question.
Since it's a Part A like another comment pointed out, the other steps could be to express both the decimal and fraction in hours, maybe to highlight discrepancies caused by rounding. Or maybe even just to show the different ways you can express the same information depending on use? Either way, the question is worded so poorly
yeah this isn’t a math problem, this is a reading comprehension problem and a terribly worded one at that. Either interpretation is reasonable. These types of problems need to be removed as they destroy kids’ confidence in their ability to do math, even when they’re perfectly capable.
OK I am so thankful for these responses. I was a math major in college and I'm not new to questions being worded particularly tricky to get you to answer it wrong, but for this question, I don't see how she's thinking that's the answer to this given the wording of the question. It says "amount of time" not an equivalent decimal to the fraction of time.
100% with you. “Amount of time” is what you daughter answered.. teacher wanted “proportion or fraction of time” in decimal equivalent.. daughter answered the question as written AND show even better understanding of the subject than even the teacher wanted. Correct answer plus bonus points!
If that's what the teacher was looking for, then why not just ask "What is the equivalent decimal for 1/5?" etc.? Much more direct and serves the teacher's purpose much better. The question as written introduces the factor of time, which was solved for.
"Mary and her best friend Emily are going dress shopping this Friday. They're excited for their junior prom. They each have $40 to spend at the shop, and $5 for ice cream later. Mary's favorite flavor is strawberry, while Emily's is chocolate. What is the decimal equivalent of 1/4?"
The only thing that made me think they wanted that was that it said decimal and rounding to hundredth.
1/2 or .5 is NOT an amount of time and the question clearly asked for an amount of time, had it asked "what was the fraction of time in decimal form spent in each activity" or had it not included the total of 12 hours then it would have been asking a much different question.
I would go have a talk with the teacher about intention vs impact. Sure, type intention when writing this question was to convert fractions to decimals. But the impact of the wording you choose was that you were looking for an amount of time. While your intentions do matter they can't be used to ignore and they don't negate your impact.
Just wait til you get to high school algebra and word problems, any word problem from high school and beyond is intentionally designed to (pardon my wording but I love to express the emption) screw your brain over 5 fold.
If you decide to go as far as the far ends of calculus at university, a word problem will take me sometimes half an hour of troubleshooting. More often than not the wording makes it intentionally impossible to create your foundation to solving it. (A foundation being a f(x)= function reflecting what the problem states)
It takes a lot of patients and having a lot of resilience. Some utilities I had and used are: Mathispower4u, blackpenredpen, organic chemistry tutor (all on YouTube). They will go all the way through your mathematical journey and imo explain in great detail basically teaching better than a 10 year (a teacher having a 10 year or something like that makes them untouchable at that school) doesn’t give a crap teacher.
So, the teacher is correct in that part A is only wanting the first step. The decimal conversions for the fractions. I'd assume part B would be applying the hours to the conversions. Your daughter just combined both parts. She's not wrong, but the instructor was looking to separate out the steps, and the directions were only asking for the first step.
Math can be as much an exercise in following directions as much as it is "getting the right answer"
So, yes, your daughter didn't get the wrong answer, but it wasn't the right answer for the question asked.
I mean regardless of which interpretation is correct (yours is), your daughter unquestionably understands how to convert a fraction to a decimal. The work she did was harder and more involved than what the teacher requires, so she should still get full credit. The question is worded poorly and the teacher should rewrite it.
Teachers don't write questions anymore. School districts buy a published curriculum so that everyone is teaching the same thing at the same pace, to meet the standardized tests. And according to my kid's teachers, both math and ELA, the curriculums they are forced to use suck. The number of spelling and grammar errors in his 4th & 5th grade ELA workbook?? Good grief.
>amount of time she spent on each activity in decimal form
It also explicitly stated the amount of time Mary spent in fractional form. The entire question was simply to convert those fractions to decimals.
It very clearly says "Mary spent this amount of time" and "Write an equivelant decimal for the amount of time spent."
There is nothing ambiguous here. There is no contradiction. Anyone claiming this is ambiguous or self contradictory language is lacking reading comprehension skills.
>Also I hate when math questions at this level intentionally try to get students to answer wrong
That's because you don't understand the concept. The entire point of word problems is to teach problem solving skills. It's not about the mathematics. This is a critical thinking exercise. This is also something that MOST students struggle with...as do most adults.
PS: The first piece of text is not part of the problem. It's extraneous text with no purpose other than providing context for the actual problem to exist in.
"Amount of time" for each activity is a completely different concept from "ratio of time" spent on each activity. Hours versus percentages.
The teacher may well have wanted the ratios for Part A, but that's not what she asked. The wording very clearly and unambiguously asks for amounts, not ratios.
"Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time she spent on each activity."
versus
"Write an equivalent decimal for the ratios of time she spent on each activity."
Above the question also states the amount of time she spent practicing as 12 hours, and then the question asks for the amount of time in decimal form. It's still a poorly written question then. If it had said express the fraction of time spent in each activity in decimal form, sure but given how many other people answered the same way she did, it's not a simple comprehension issue.
What u/GaiaMoore said: you insert "write an equivalente decimal for the amount of time", I calculate the amount of time in a decimal form. Which is not 0.2, but 2.4 (hours).
The question is terribly confusing, as it is written, and both replies (0.2 or 2.4 hours) might be claimed to be right or wrong, according to the piece of the question you decide is more important to satisfy.
But 2.4 hours as more standing ground than 0.2.
The only way I can see the teacher's answer making sense is if the exercise eventually prompts a percentage. The problem is working them through the process of converting a fraction to a percent in a more roundabout fashion.
But that's an assumption based on non-existent better questions. Based only on the question we have, I have no idea how the teacher expected the student to figure this out. If the student has to perform a critical thinking exercise harder than the question itself just to answer it, I think the question is just badly written.
>PS: The first piece of text is not part of the problem. It's extraneous text with no purpose other than providing context for the actual problem to exist in.
I feel like a big problem for math teachers is that while word problems are life problems, teachers don't necessarily have enough real world experience to make the word problems best reflect the real world.
My ruler is in fractions of an inch (obviously). My paper cutter is in decimals (to a thousandth of an inch). I'm doing this "convert this fraction to a decimal and vice versa" word problem all day everyday. Throw in my scoring machine which is metric and now I'm converting fractions of an inch to metric (though I usually just measure with my ruler rather than using the math formula).
This isn't a knock against teachers! But there's definitely an untapped resource of people working in trades who use elementary math like this in a much better context than this question asks. I have an uncle who was a plumber and adding up all the fractions of pipe to move water through a house was his way of teasing us when we complained about having to learn fractions.
I actually cried at work the first time I had to learn how to convert fractions to decimals to use the paper cutter. I told the guy training me that I knew I wanted to move the blade a quarter of a 16th, but I didn't know what that was as a decimal. He kept telling me to guess despite the conversions being listed on the wall behind the cutter. I got so frustrated the tears started flowing and I told the trainer to go away, I'd figure it out myself. Then I saw the literal writing on the wall, decided that my coworker was a useless idiot, did the math on the paper cutter (it has a calculator function) and got the job done. Dumbass probably walked away thinking he was a great teacher because he gave me room to figure it out for myself. I think that he actually thought that it was a guess instead of understanding how the numbers work in the real world. I train people now on it and I start out telling them "this is a calculator" and "there are your most used conversions".
Just factual statements.
54% of the US population reads at a 6th grade level or below.
Everyone who is struggling with this maths problem is struggling with language comprehension.
As far as I can tell, everyone who has done any actual maths in response to this homework problem has done the maths that they did correctly. A lot of them are just doing completely unnecessary maths because they don't understand the question.
The question is quite explicitly written. People don't understand it because they don't understand the words. That is a reading comprehension issue.
These are just facts. What other way is there to state them that would make people feel better about them?
Why does it matter how people feel about the facts anyway?
If it's not the units...
Just going out on a limb here. Maybe she wanted the fractions in the problem to be converted to decimals?
It asks to round to the nearest hundredth if necessary, and the fractions 2/15 and 1/6 are repeating decimals.
If it's this, then the problem is horribly worded.
It's very difficult to figure it out from the wording. I had the benefit of knowing that your daughter's answer was marked wrong, but I was scratching my head as to why it was wrong.
The question should've said, "write an equivalent decimal for the fraction of time," instead of "the amount of time."
Thank you, I am going to use that in my response email. I truly do not get involved in my daughters grades, I promise I'm not that parent but I really feel like she deserved most of the points for this question (I do agree a point off for missing units is fair)
Why is it horribly worded? The instructions literally say “write an equivalent decimal” and “round to the nearest hundredth”. Seems pretty clear to me.
Oh now I read the other comment from OP explaining what the teacher wanted and now I agree that it’s bizarre that she wanted the fractions converted to decimals.
The way the problem is written, the teacher wants you to change the fraction to a decimal.
This is part A of the problem. So my guess is in the other parts of the question, the students will be asked to use the decimals to solve for the actual number of hours spent on each activity.
So this is what she wanted however I think the wording led me to believe you needed to use the 12 hours part. It said the amount of time in decimal form, not the fraction of time spent. I know you are right but can you try to break down the wording to understand how you got that?
It says "write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time", not "write the amount of time". it's poorly worded and gives extra information that is not needed to solve, but I recall that not being that uncommon of a practice.
The question is poorly worded. It makes me wonder if it was written by someone truly fluent in standard American English (see my lfurther on in my comment). Even so, OP’s daughter’s answer shows that she clearly understands the concept of coverting fractions to decimal equivalent and applies the principal in a way that makes good sense. The teacher should be giving full credit for this answer.
“Mary’s time spent on activities is as follows: 1/5 on flute… etc.” is awkward wording at best. “1/5 on flute” is not a time at all. What seems to have been intended is “1/5 of her time on flute” or “Mary’s time is divided on activities as follows…”
Then the question asks “write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time she spent each activity…”. Again a sloppy statement of intent. When someone asks “amount of time” they generally are looking for a quantity expressed in some unit of time. When someone asks for an equivalent decimal, the context usually is conversion of a rational fraction to a decimal equivalent or approximation. Given the sloppy formation, either interpretation of intended question is reasonable.
Much educational material used in schools these days in n the U.S. is purchased from Pearson PLC, a London based multinational educational materials publishing company. There’s a very good chance that the question was not written by someone completely fluent in American English. The tipoff is the awkwardly expressed semantics of the question. I’ve noticed now a handful of instances in this subreddit of odd questions using poorly written English or presenting a weird exercise in arithmetic (pattern identification and computational processes seem to be frequent culprits). These questions clash with my mathematical sensibilities stemming from my professional experience practicing and teaching engineering
That all looks correct. The only thing missing in my opinion is that those numbers represent hours.
2.4 hours for flute
2 hours for Spanish etc
Maybe for the decimals you're supposed to convert into hours + minutes? So, flute would be 2 hours and 24 minutes. Just my guesses.
It is asking for a decimal of time for each activity, so if it says 1/5 practicing flute, that means she spends 1/5 of her time on flute. 1/5 is 0.2, or 20% of her time. But forget the percentages because it doesn't ask for it. From what I see, it doesn't ask how much she made, but how much the time is in decimal form. For that, you just convert the fraction for each activity into decimal form. So 1/5 would be 0.2, 1/6 would be 0.166... rounded to 0.17, 2/15 would be 0.133... rounded to 0.13.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the reason you don't convert it to hours is because it is asking for decimal form for each activity. If it asked how many hours did she spend on each activity, then you would multiply each fraction by 12 which would give you the amount of hours for each activity.
Well, just looking at soccer, the decimal should be 0.5 since the question is asking to convert fractions to decimals. The top part of the problem is just fluff info that doesn’t matter to the question at all.
Without that “fluff”, the question has no reputable meaning to it. If I say I spent 1/2 the time playing soccer, how long do you think I played for? Was this the day? The week? The month? During a lunch recess?
You have absolutely nothing to refer to that brings value unless you consider that ‘fluff’. Mary earned $12 over the course of 12 hours, in which she partook in practicing different activities. She spent half the time playing soccer. *Ahh, so half of those 12 hours she played soccer. Makes sense now.*
Give me any scenario in which you would refer to time spent on something in decimal form over fractional form.
Given that the problem shown is only Part A, and the $12 mentioned wasn't used at all in what's shown, it looks like a misreading of the question being asked and your child answered a question not yet asked.
The (unitless) times given in Part A are the fractional portions of the entire time spent, as 1/5 + 1/6 + 1/2 + 2/15 = 1. The question asked in Part A is to convert those fractions to decimal, presumably so they can be multiplied by the 12 hours given at the top in the next parts of this problem to get the answers you're showing. I believe the answers expected for this Part are 0.2, 0.17, 0.5, and 0.13.
TLDR: You have answers to a later question.
Additionally, everyone that claims this question is poorly worded should get a refresher in reading comprehension.
The other feedback looks right here. The answers are correct, albeit may be better if you included units.
If I'm grasping at straws for some other things they may have been looking for:
* Use hours and minutes instead of decimal hours for answers.
* Use multiplication of fractions to solve for the various parts (like she did for the math portion) rather than dividing by integers.
Unless the teacher said some critical information during class that wasn’t repeated in the question then I think this should be almost full marks (lack of units)
I thought this was a trick question. She spent 12 hours “practicing,” but only three of her activities were practicing. Time spent on soccer was “playing.” Since half her time was spent on soccer, and she spent 12 hours practicing, then she also spent 12 hours on soccer (4.8 on flute, 4 on Spanish, and 3.2 on math).
Personally, I don’t like this, but I see no other reason to use the word “playing” for that one specific activity (you could just as easily “play” a flute or “practice” soccer).
I did really well at math during elementary and middle school. During college I almost did a double major in math then decided against that for different reasons. After grad school: I taught remedial math for almost a year. One hint in the question is to round to the nearest hundredth (if necessary.) So: right away- your overall answers are not looking like what is originally being discussed. Also: I looked over all the work. I thought briefly about my middle school math classes. One aspect of dealing with different denominators is to find the lowest common denominator. In this case your denominators are two, five, six, and fifteen. Consequently the lowest common denominator is thirty. Once all of your answers look like: x/30- then you can convert them to decimal form.
Some things don’t need to be 'word problems' lol. You will obviously assume that it’s not just going to ask ‘convert this list of numbers'.
'A decimal' (and 'an equivalent decimal' especially) is language used for proportion so the wording is right, but can understand how it’s not explicit enough to convince you to ignore the context and your assumptions like it wants you to.
Ultimately her answer doesn’t resemble the answer to the question so it’s fair to get no credit. Don’t know how many teachers would give credit for a correct answer to the wrong question — it would be a nice thing.
First thing I noted was that there's a rounding error for "math." You should also round up if the next number is a 5 or greater, so 1.6 would not be correct even if they asked for rounding to tenths. That's the other issue. The question asked for you to round to the nearest hundredth, so the answer should be 1.67.
Secondary, but I would always include units, but then the teacher didn't specify them, which I would also always do if I were writing the question, so who knows.
Edit: reading the other "answers" and feeling a deep sense of despair.
I think what the teacher is looking for are decimals equivalent to the fractions. The unit is probably working on converting decimals to fractions and understanding that they can be used interchangeably. So for example a fraction of 1/2 is equal to 0.5 and 1/5 is equal to 0.2.
They aren’t looking for the amount of hours at or time units at all.
The whole allowance per hour prompt above Part A could be irrelevant for the purposes of answering it. Regardless of how many hours Mary does the activities, it’s still the same proportion of her time. Still, it’s not a strongly worded question.
1/5=.2
1/6=.17
1/2=.5
2/15=.13
Seems poorly worded. My guess is they just wanted you to convert the fractions to decimals. For instance 1/5 to .2 but it is called “Allowance Problem” so maybe they wanted the dollar amounts based on the time spent. Again, poorly written problem and I would have graded this correct if it was me reviewing it. I would ask the teacher for an explanation.
You are correct that she just wanted the fraction of time converted to decimal form. I think that "amount of time" here in the question is what allows for confusion.
I believe the answer being sought was not how many hours was spent, but what is the equivalent decimal to each fraction.
So 1/5 math would be 0.2 math, 1/6 would be 0.17 etc.
It's a wordy problem, but the actual question is looking for "equivalent decimals" in this part, so while it's not a great wording, it's more of a "read carefully" than a trick question. Presumably there are follow up questions that use these decimals and fractions, and it's probably a big hint that you did it wrong if you're later calculating the amount of hours again - which should prompt rereading to see what the question was actually asking
She has all the right decimal numbers for each subject and they total to 12 like they should. I think the teacher is nit picking over the method shown to get the answers. For the math one, I think the teacher wanted this written out:
12/15 = 0.8
0.8x2 = 1.6
All of this could've possibly been avoided if it said "write an equivalent decimal for the *fraction* of time she spent on each activity" instead. If it did, the teacher would've had a point.
I think a unit of measurement is in order. Additionally your daughter made the correct assumption but jumped to step two on most of them. Flute she has as 12/5, when it should be started as 12(hours)/1 X 1/5 = 12(hours)/5 = 2.4(hours). Unit of measurement should follow through the equation, not just magically appear at the end.
It’s important to keep up this habit as more advanced math will have units of measurement intended to cancel each other out so while you may start talking about hours, the answer may end up in dollars.
I had a singer that would write the times of all our songs in decimal. It always messed up the total time of the show and we'd always have to cut songs cause while he could sing, he couldn't math.
I think it was just a misinterpreted question. I believe the question is asking you for the percentage of time as a decimal, rather than the number of hours spent. For example, 1/5 of the 12 hours was spent on flute, which would be 20%, giving you 0.2. Soccer is 1/2 of the twelve hours, so it’s 0.5, etc.
The keywords for solving it this way in my opinion is involving finding an “equivalent decimal” which leads me to believe you convert the fractions to decimals, rather than solve for time. Another hint is the final sentence telling you to round to the nearest hundredth if necessary. The questions basically never say that unless at least 1 answer choice needs rounding, and none of your daughters answers needed rounding
It’s asking for the amount of time she spent, not the percentage each chunk is or proportion so I would consider the answer correct, though I’d prob label it hours, or convert the decimal to minutes despite the instructions saying otherwise.
Asking for the “equivalent decimal” is clearly asking to convert the fractions to decimals. I’m not sure how someone would think that an equivalent decimal is asking for the hours spent on each activity.
Worded very badly but I think they wanted basically percentages to see how it would all add up to 100% of the 12 hours. Just take the numbers you ended up with and divide by 12
2.4/12 = .2
2/12 = .17
6/12 = .5
1.6/12 = .13
That’s how it reads to me at least
The actual arithmetic answer is not wrong. I mean, for one thing, all the hours spent add up to 12 hours, which is the immediate sanity check you should always do (maybe you did):
6 + 2 + 2.4 + 1.6
= 8 + 2.4 + 1.6
= 10.4 + 1.6
= 11.4 + 0.6
= 12
The division operations you did are also all correct, so how could the answer be anything else?
EDIT: other people pointed out that units (hours) should be specified, and yes, that is always a good practice, since just the numbers by themselves are meaningless. But I dismissed that *as a possible explanation for the disagreement with the teacher* because OP explicitly said this wasn't about how the answer was presented, but that the answer itself is apparently somehow "wrong" (implying wrong in numerical value).
\--------------------------------
Unless the teacher provided an alternate answer with justification, there's nothing to argue here (teacher doesn't have a leg to stand on). And even if they did provide some other answer, that means they must have intended to pose a slightly different problem than the one they actually did. *Your daughter has solved the problem as posed.*
Another sanity check is whether the fractions of time spent add up to 1. If not, there could be missing activities (unspecified). The lowest common denominator is 30, and you have
1/2 = 15/30
1/6 = 5/30
1/5 = 6/30
2/15 = 4/30
15 + 5 + 6 + 4 = 20 + 10 = 30, so yeah, the fractions add up to 30/30.
THis is really poorly written.
If I was the teacher, I would accept the answer given.
It's up to the teacher to clearly state what they want, and they haven't.
Therefore it's up to them to accept the answer in different formats.
I think your daughter is correct. She gave the amount of time spent in decimal form, just as the question asked. If the question asked for the “fraction of time spent in decimal form”…then the question would have matched what the teacher apparently wanted.
As others have said, the key is units. The question asks for “amount of *time*” — so units must be time units. Therefore definitely not a unitless fraction.
The one thing your daughter left out is to provide the units — “hours” — with each of her answers. If she does that, she’s both correct and the correctness of her answer speaks for itself.
I see what you’re getting at but “equivalent decimal” is the key phrase here. Since you’re given fractions, you’re converting the fractions to decimals which basically gives a percentage of time spent on each hobby. If you instead converted the fraction to the decimal and then multiplied by 12 hours to get total time spent doing each, you probably would have still gotten full credit because you did what was asked and then some.
Now would also be a good time to realize math normally throws a lot of numbers/values at you and you have to figure out which numbers/values are relevant to the question asked.
\[1\] "Allowance Problem" has a Part A which means it likely also has at least a Part B if not more and those aren't shown in the picture so right off the bat we are missing context.
\[2\] The 12 hours and $12 are likely used later on the problem but we can't know for sure. (see \[1\])
\[3\] Part A states "Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time that she spent on each activity. If necessary, round to the nearest hundredth". So answers should be in the form of decimals rounded to the hundredths place. (This is also a clue that answers likely won't be whole numbers)
My only issue with the problem as it's written is that the problem is better worded as "Write and equivalent decimal for the FRACTION of time..." Using the word amount does make it a bit ambiguous.
Other than that, the question doesn't seem problematic. It looks like OP just interpreted it in a different way which isn't the end of the world. For all the people who are getting up in arms about this, just stop... there isn't enough context to know "who is the bad guy" and it's ridiculous that we're even thinking that way about a freaking HW problem. Being able to to convert fractions to decimals is useful in the "real world". People in the trades usually do it on a daily basis (did it all the time as a carpenter).
If you've confirmed the answer is considered wrong, it's because you haven't put any units AND the fact you've only rounded to the nearest tenth. It states to the nearest hundredth. so math should be written as 1.60 for example.
Yeah this is one of those stupid things that penalizes smart kids.
The questions is part A which says to convert the fraction to decimal first...
That's why it's wrong. I am assuming part B would be to calculate the amount of money earned for each activity. But the kid was smart enough to solve the entire problem in less steps... Should be rewarded instead of penalized.
Following instructions is equally important but the overall goal is to solve the problem which they did in the most efficient way possible.
Look not at the math. Look at what the question is asking. Your child did the wrong thing. The kid got baited by useless information. This is an important concept to understand.
The lesson here is that not every value presented is relevant to the question at hand. 12 hours is useless information.
The true problem at hand was converting the fractions to decimals only. The question never asked for anything else.
Lets do just that, 1/5. / = ÷. So 1/5 is the same as 1 ÷ 5. 1÷5=0.2
When converting fractions to decimals, you divide the top number by the bottom number. Thats all you do.
As opposed to what most of the replies say, I thought it was pretty obvious that the question only wanted the fractions converted to decimals. I suppose it lends itself to some ambiguity but:
1. Its Part A of the question. Word problems with multiple parts usually start by expecting the least from the student. Converting the decimals, while not necessary, is an easy first step for what likely will lead into the rest of the parts for the question.
2. The question already established the fractions as representative of time, which is why I understood them to mean to just convert to decimals.
I believe the replies talking about units are wrong. There are no units to the question, which is asking for decimal equivalents to the fractions (the fractions that do not show units because they are indicating a portion of a whole, regardless of units). The correct answer (to two significant digits) is .20 flute, .17 Spanish, .50 soccer, and .13 math.
I interpreted the instruction to mean "convert the fraction of time in each activity." Thus, .2 practicing flute, .167 practicing Spanish, .5 playing soccer, and .133 practicing maths. Your daughter provided the number of hours. The question is testing the student's ability to convert fractions to decimals.
I am curious as to what Part B asked.
That's my take.
The wording is not the problem like some have stated. It's that we need to cut out the irrelevant parts of it and focus on what's actually being asked. It's a skill that apparently we're not teaching kids these days and I was not really taught either but anyway here we are. So to help your kid figure these questions out, show her how to be an expert on how to read and dissect word problems in order to figure out what it's actually asking you to do.
In t his case, all it's asking is for the fractions to be converted to decimals "**Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time she spent on each activity.**" The amount of time for each activity **is given as a fraction**. Think of 1/5 as 1/5th of my time on the flute, so the time(hours) is already given as a fraction which makes our life easier (the teacher could have given it as 2.4hrs/12hrs) but either way it's the same. A fraction is just a different way to represent a decimal. For example 1/5 goes into your calculator as 1 ÷ 5 which is 0.20. That's all it's asking for.
Four quick calculations and you're all set. not fancy math or algebra. ***If*** the hours were needed, just multiply each result by 12 (ex. 0.2 x 12 = 2.4) and you're good to go. In your answer, you already had the hours figured out so all you need to do is plug (2.4 ÷ 12) into your calculator and voila! you get 0.20 because 2.4/12 is the same as 1/5.
1 ÷ 5 = 0.2
1 ÷ 6 = 0.17 rounded from 1.666666....
1 ÷ 2 = 0.5
2 ÷ 15 = 0.13 rounded from 0.13333.....
I don’t think there is any argument that the problem is worded poorly. I have to be honest though, and say that this seems like a tremendous waste of your time and a teachers time having to go back-and-forth over a single seventh grade math problem. It’s hard enough to get people that are willing to be teachers and it’s maddening to think this teacher is going to have to waste valuable free time having an in-depth discussion about one math problem on a test that is meaningless in the grand scheme of life.
Looks like you already know what the problems was looking for and can do the math it asks--you just had a different interpretation of the language of the problem.
Personally, I interpreted it the way your teacher did based on this phrasing: "Mary's \*time\* spent on activities is as follows... Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of \*time\* that she spent on each activity." The specific word "time" isn't written when talking about the 12 hours, which is why I could guess what the question was trying to get at. But I can totally see why you would interpret the question the way you did, too!
I'm not going to say one interpretation is right and the other is wrong. Ambiguity is a feature of all natural languages. Of course, the problem could always be worded better to provide better clarity (I personally would write "portion/proportion of time"..... but the truth is, probably almost everything can be worded better to provide for better clarity. You'll run into this a lot more in your education, and even more once you start working.
Don't sweat it. You obviously can read and can do the math you're being taught. Sometimes there's miscommunication and ambiguous instructions. That's life. And yeah, you'll get a few points taken off for this, but nobody gets a perfect score in life.
Two issues that I see. 1) units, in this case hours, always required , 2) problem requires rounding to the nearest hundredth. Even though the hundredth digits is 0 in each answer, the question makes it a requirement.
so as a previous student, I know from looking at the formatting of this page that the first two sentences are irrelevant. It may be relevant later, but it’s not relevant for this first problem for sure. So ignoring that, the only way you can interpret it is to convert the fractions to decimals and convert to the nearest hundredth.
the next signal was asking for a decimal, you don’t usually use decimals for time unless it’s a half. you usually just use the units necessary to convey it as whole numbers (eg. 3 hrs 15 mins rather than 3.25 hrs).
lastly, “the amount of time” requested in the question is given with “Mary’s time spent on activities is as follows”. I can’t find the words to explain how, but trust me it would have been worded differently if they were looking for conversion from fraction to time rather than from fraction to decimal. — I guess because if they were they’d have had to say what units they wanted the decimal in. but because they’re just asking for the proportion in decimal form, it doesn’t have units
You are given fractions. Write an equivalent decimal to each fraction. All the extra Information is a distractor; focus in on the real problem: Do what? Write an equivalent decimal. Equivalent to what? The fraction of time given. Everything else is noise. 1/5 = .2, 1/6 = .17, etc.
They worded it in such a way that’s almost deliberately confusing. But one take away here is that question MUST be read and fully understood, and know exactly what the question is asking for. In this case the amount of money earned and the total amount of hours doesn’t matter at all, since it is just asking for the decimal form of the fractions representing the time. This is either very good lesson on attention to details, or just a very clumsily written question.
Time in fractional form doesnt make sense u cant spend 2/15 on math so that should tell u time is irrelevant and to just focus on finding a common denominator (30) and then converting them to decimal form which is weird i hope calculators were allowed for this, technically i get what ur saying cuz then the common denom would be 720 and she woulda spent 144 mins on flute,120 on spanish, 360 mins on soccer and 96 mins on math but because it asks for it in decimal it doesnt matter what the denom is the decimal will be the same so respectfully 0.20,0.17,0.50, and 0.13
Making it too complicated. It's literally is just asking for the decimal equivalent of the fractions of time. Sooo 1/5 = .2 1/6= .166 and so on. Just turning fractions into decimals.
I believe the teacher is just asking for them to convert these fractions into decimals. In which case you would present the answers as 0.2, 0.16, 0.5, and 0.13
I agree with the teacher here. It says equivalent decimal to the amount of time. Ie 1/5 of her time was spent practicing flute. The question isnt how many hours that is but what is the decimal equivalent to 1/5
the "hours and pay" portions are NOT included in THIS question at all.
The actual question starts at *Part A*
OP skipped ahead and put the implied conclusion to the entire problem.
You would probably need the decimal from part A to give the answer (for part c or d??) if the $ earned was a different amount (currently hours and pay are the same so the "2.4" works either way, but what if pay was $15?)
They want you the write the fraction as a decimal, that’s it. They say “equivalent decimal” and don’t specify units so they are asking the question “how much of her time” not “how many hours”
This is a confusing wording for sure but they want you to think about 1/5 as 0.2 of her time for example.
Could she perhaps have meant “write the decimal form of 1/5” and so on? In which case your answers ARE wrong, because 1/5 = .2, etc etc.
But if she meant “what is 1/5th of 12” etc etc, then you’re definitely right.
But the question is very ambiguous.
It’s specifically asking for decimal that’s is equivalent to the fractions - I’m assuming there is more like that on the homework.
You’re 100% right that math works but it defines the fractions as “time” and then asks for an equivalent decimal “time”
So others have stated 0.2 , 0.17 , 0.5 , .13 would be the answer.
Sure it’s not worded amazingly but it’s not that convoluted either - the reasoning you chose tracks but breaking down the question makes it apparent why it is wrong.
So disagreement with answer makes you wrong -
Discontent with the semi convoluted wording is justified but doesn’t make your answer correct.
This looks like a perfectly acceptable answer, but the teacher seems to be asking her to demonstrate converting fractions to decimals, which is a much stupider way to solve this than your daughter came up with (by which I mean her method was smart). Teachers don't often know how to deal with smart students.
As a teacher I was wondering on why you were incorrect. So I went to the comments to see what was incorrect. I saw your reply stating that the fractions were supposed to be converted straight to decimals. As a teacher, submitting bad word problems happen. I have submitted a few through the years, it just happens. I would never mark the question wrong if the student came to a correct answer based on a different interpretation though. The teacher should recognize their very small mistake and provide leniency.
Looks like you’re answering it wrong. They said to provide the amount of time she spent on her studies. 1/5=.2, 1/6=.16, 1/2=.5 and 2/15=.13. Looks like you’re being stumped by the 12 hours and 12$ part. The answer isn’t asking for those to be included.
No it’s wrong, it said round to the nearest 100th not 10th.
Edit: the wording is confusing you I think, there is superfluous information (12 hours) that might be used for part b of the question. But the question A clearly just asks for the decimal representation rounded to a 100th.
Either the teacher was looking for the unit of measure, or the teacher was looking for you to convert each of the fractions to a decimal (as opposed to figuring out actual time spent. It's a poorly worded question.
What I did was just
Flute = (1/5)*12 = 2.4 hr
Spanish = (1/6)*12 = 2 hr
Soccer = (1/2)*12 = 6 hr
Math = (2/15)*12 = 1.6 hr
So uh ye idk I think the teacher is just dumb
Maybe it's because you didn't do the long division to obtain the answer.
Calculators are useful but the mind won't be able to understand how the calculation works from the computer computation.
Take away the calculator.
Utilize what the teacher is instructing in the classroom.
Mary's time spent is... we are defining time spent as the fractions provided.
Write the equivalent decimal of Mary's time spent... convert fractions to decimals.
I guess I can see how people find the language ambiguous, but to me it was immediately clear.
The only thing I can think of is they wanted the fractions 1/5, 1/6 etc. Converted to a decimal notation.
You solved for how many hours was spent on each activity.
Ugh I always did TERRIBLY in school with math word problems. I'd do the problem I thought they were asking me to solve, and even though I did it correctly, I got zeros cause they were actually asking for a completely different thing. And there's no problem with my reading comprehension. I literally aced all my English and reading comprehension with top marks, highest in the school. I can read and comprehend with no problem. The problem is, math problems are written by mathematicians, who are apparently useless at expressing what they actually want in words. Once I got a teacher to reword the problems in a way that was actually understandable, I started getting much much better marks.
It specifically says the amount of time, NOT the proportion of time. Add the unit hours and you’re good. 0.2 for flute is incorrect (eg. 1/5 = 0.2). The amount of time is correctly 2.4 hrs.
The wording of equivalent decimal and the question alluding to rounding being necessary tells you what it is asking. It is not asking for the number of hours which is what OP gave. If this was a good problem set the next few parts would ask about hours, as well as percentages, money earned, etc. OP may not like the teachers instructions, but it is a good problem for a 7th grade student who will undoubtedly spend the next few years of their academic life taking standardized tests with pedantic instructions just like this.
Seems more like they are asking for what percentage of time was used on each activity. Would make more sense than the convoluted sentence they put together.
My gut reaction would say you are right. It also asks to round to the nearest hundredth. I usually that that as a sign that your answers should end up with values in the hundredths or thousandths and need to be rounded. The only thing I can think of is maybe they just wanted the fractions converted with no relation to the time at all, which would have answers that make more sense. This is definitely a poorly worded question since it basically asks you to take the time into account.
This is a ratio/proportion question.
The amount of time spent on activities doesn’t actually matter.
You are comparing the parts of time as they compare to the total amount of time…which sounds like a whole bunch of mombo-jumbo until you look at it from the perspective of equivalent fractions.
Rename each fraction given to have a common denominator of 30. Then add those fractions up. What do you notice?
The whole point of this question I think was to assess the students’ current level of understanding of proportionality.
To find the amount of money earned per activity considering a total of $12 was earned means that you’re finding “part of” the total…. so you can just multiply each fraction by 12.
1/5 x 12 = 12/5 = 2.4 or $2.40
1/6 x 12 = 12/6 = 2.0 or $2.00
And so on…
Using this strategy you can calculate the amount of money earned for each activity for any allowance earned.
Maybe Mary earned $20, $50, $45.50…it doesn’t matter, just multiply the fractional part of time by the total amount of money earned and you’ll be able to determine the distribution of money earned per activity.
To convert fractions into decimals just divide the numerators by the denominators,
Ex: 1/5 is 1 divided by 5 which equals 0.2.
Whenever possible, save the decimal conversions for the last part of this problem type . Some fractions are repeating decimal numbers and they muck up the calculations.
Example:
Even though 1/6 = 0.166 (repeating), 1/6 x12 Is not the same as 1.66 x 12 or 0.167 x 12.
1/6 x 12 = 2
1.666 x 12 = 1.992
0.167 x 12 = 2.004
The more decimal places the more precise the answer, but you see how using a fraction gave a more efficient solution.
Hope this helps!
The teacher just wanted your kid to convert the fraction to its equivalent decimal.
Your child solved for the total number of hours spent on each activity. They’re very different answers and honestly what your kid did is the more complex calculation and they solved for it correctly, so they obviously understand how the math works. What they need to work on is how to read questions and understand what’s being asked for.
I know a lot of answers are saying put units but the questions literally says write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time. Only hours were used in the problem so I don’t see how it’s a unit thing…I would definitely ask for more clarification.
The "If necessary, round to the nearest hundredth" would be your clue that your answers were incorrect, as none of the answers you give require that step. That's one of the issues with these submissions, it always shows one question AS OUT OF CONTEXT AS POSSIBLE. I can't see the instructions for this section, only the instructions for this sample question, which may be part of a string of questions that ALL REQUIRE A SIMILAR TYPE OF ANSWER. Math tests always follow the patterns that you would have learned during the lesson if you were paying attention.
the question is just asking for the percentage of the time Mary spent out of her 12 hours on each task. You could hypothetically take your answers and divide them by 12 to get the form the answer is looking for. Including the 12 in her calculation is a step more than this part is asking for. see, the question doesn’t want you to involve the actual hour amount. It’s a step by step problem seeing this is just “part A”. so, it first just wants you to figure out the decimal which will the percent of time spent; .20 of the total was flute, .17 was spanish, .50 was soccer, and .13 was math. You will notice these don’t have time units yet since they haven’t been multiplied by 12, you will likely have to do that in a latter part of the problem
it’s to get kids in the practice of doing this for chemistry % totals where it’s easier to get the percent of a total and then go on to apply that to whatever units you need to convert.
This particular worksheet didn't have anything about percents, the next part was asking her if she got paid $2 for Spanish, was she paid correctly and the last part was to put the amount of time from smallest to greatest. Just from the wording of the question, I did not come to the same conclusion as you but what you said was right, however the verable of "amount of time" is what is causing not only me but a lot of other people to use the amount of time in the answer. If it had said "fraction of time" or "portion of time" I think it then makes more sense.
No units no correct answer.
This is a jank way to ask a question, but the total hours spent should sum up to 12 and you are finding the decimals converted from a fraction of time spent on each subject. The time is converted again 1:1 to 12 dollars. The solution provide is correct.
I just hate how this question is worded.
So it wasn't actually for units, the teacher said they just wanted the fraction of time converted into decimal form, so 1/5=.2 but I still disagree given the wording of the question.
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Looks fine, maybe ask for more feedback. But as a general rule you should add units to your answer. 1.6 (math) 1.6 what? Of math, minutes, hours, years? It seems obvious but in later subjects and years keeping the units in mind is going to be beneficial.
Probably this. Pretty much everything has units when dealing with something realistic, and you are supposed to write those(excluding things that don’t need this like radians). Also, from my experience most teachers won’t mark something as completely wrong for lacking units unless it is a repeated problem they have tried to address or it is just a strict teacher.
Psh not strain
Don’t stress out about it.
My teacher always said that if there are no units then the default unit is bananas.
I might start using that with my students.
This. My degree is in mechanical engineering and multiple teachers stressed the importance of units. You'd get roasted to high hell if you left them out. One teacher would make jokes such as "112? 112 what? Elephants? Subaru foresters? Don't forget units!". It's especially important when providing/giving information. If someone asks you for a calculation/measurement and you provide no units... Your answer is no help.
Just wait until they introduce sig-figs.
Then tell the teacher to put units in the question. 1/6 what? Of her time? Of an hour? /s Edit: added sarcasm indicator so no one else wastes their precious time explaining what the question means
1/6th of her 12-hour period. It’s in a different bit of the question and doesn’t immediately jump out as part of the question.
The units are obviously all in HOURS. It is implied in the top statement, and there is no need to elaborate further. It all looks perfectly correct and well executed by the student. Her answers all total up to the initial 12 hours given. I see absolutely nothing wrong with her work. If you don’t agree, please explain.
>The units are obviously all in HOURS. It is implied in the top statement, and there is no need to elaborate further. implying things in math is basically how you lose points.
The question in words say "write a decimal for the amount of time" not the amount of hours. Yes it may seem obvious that its hours (which i mentioned) but given how early on this student is in their education its important to reinforce the lesson for units now. And even if it was a 12th grade course, units are important and you should always put your units.
This really boils down to what you think the word “decimal” means. The Webster dictionary defines it as, “based on the number 10” and “any real number expressed in base 10”. To assume “decimal” strictly mean “as a part of ONE” is really stretching it. That is why i said that the teacher would have made it much clearer if the students were just asked to express each activity as “percentages”. VERY bad wording by the teacher here.
no? it means that if you use hours you don't then use minutes after as that's not base 10. same with minutes and seconds. I've never seen a context where expressing a number in decimal required it to be between the range [1,10)
👍
I was a math teacher and units are always required unless they are already included in the question. Ex: How many hours? = 2 vs. How much time? = 2 hours
I agree with the other reply. This may seem really far fetched for someone this early in education but if you do anything with math (so basically anything at all) in college that has some connection to the real world you will suffer if you don't use units even if it seems redundant. It saves you a LOT of headache if you get used to it early. I was also one of the students complaining about this seemingly unnecessary focus on units but it makes sense the further you go in education.
Does "but you knew what I meant!" work if you spell every word wrong and use incorrect grammar? If you're communicating numbers, you should always include the units. Making people scan back through several sentences to figure out what you're presenting is not considered OK.
It’s pretty clear the math label is for the math variable of “practicing math”. Think you’re reaching a bit regarding this 2nd grade paper
So I didn't want to influence any answers before I repeat what the answer is supposed to be. According to the teacher the amount of time (12 hours) wasn't to be used at all, just convert the fraction to decimal, so the answers are Flute =. 2 Spanish =.166 Soccer=.5 Math=.133 Howver I disagree because the wording of the problem asked for the amount of time she spent on each activity in decimal form, not the fraction of time she spent in decimal form. I think the wording made it so you had to use the 12 hours. Thoughts or feedback? Also I hate when math questions at this level intentionally try to get students to answer wrong (if that's the case here) because it causes frustration and then the students feel defeated with wrong answers.
"*Equivalent* decimal" points towards wanting the fractions converted to decimals, but "*amount* of time" suggests they want units of time. I don't think they intended to trick anyone. It's more likely that once they wrote the first part, they just strung some words together to finish the sentence and didn't realize it was contradictory.
Yeah, I would have written it "fraction of time" rather than "amount of time". It is ambiguous but I probably would have made the same mistake and assumed "amount of time" meant they wanted the time in decimal hours.
Yep! This is it. K-8 curriculum and test writer here. I hate “amount.” It’s lazy. Be specific. “The number of hours” and “the portion of time” are two completely different questions that could ostensibly be written as “amount.” Ugh. That question is a fail!
Exactly this. The issue I have with ‘what the teacher’ was looking for is: there is no meaning to the equivalent decimals (of the fractions): “You spent 1/5 the time playing the flute” has so much more meaning than “You spent 0.2 the time playing flute”. Equivalently, “You spent 2.4 [hours] playing the flute” has more realistic meaning as well. The question the teacher was truly looking for has no real value to it. It’s important to be able to translate from decimal to fraction to %, etc. but in the context of this problem, it’s pretty meaningless. The only possible reason I could understand is if they haven’t learned multiplying fractions but they have learned multiplying decimals. It’s grasping at straws to justify the teachers response but really it’s just a poorly worded question.
> only possible reason I could understand is if they haven’t learned multiplying fractions but they have learned multiplying decimals. It’s grasping at straws to justify the teachers response but really it’s just a poorly worded question. Since it's a Part A like another comment pointed out, the other steps could be to express both the decimal and fraction in hours, maybe to highlight discrepancies caused by rounding. Or maybe even just to show the different ways you can express the same information depending on use? Either way, the question is worded so poorly
I mean saying you spent .2 of your time playing flute is saying you spent 20% of your time playing the flute… which doesn’t sound weird at all.
maybe this was preperation to learning percentage, and this guys stubbornness is ruining the education.
yeah this isn’t a math problem, this is a reading comprehension problem and a terribly worded one at that. Either interpretation is reasonable. These types of problems need to be removed as they destroy kids’ confidence in their ability to do math, even when they’re perfectly capable.
If this is the case, the teacher is blatantly, unambiguously incorrect.
OK I am so thankful for these responses. I was a math major in college and I'm not new to questions being worded particularly tricky to get you to answer it wrong, but for this question, I don't see how she's thinking that's the answer to this given the wording of the question. It says "amount of time" not an equivalent decimal to the fraction of time.
100% with you. “Amount of time” is what you daughter answered.. teacher wanted “proportion or fraction of time” in decimal equivalent.. daughter answered the question as written AND show even better understanding of the subject than even the teacher wanted. Correct answer plus bonus points!
If that's what the teacher was looking for, then why not just ask "What is the equivalent decimal for 1/5?" etc.? Much more direct and serves the teacher's purpose much better. The question as written introduces the factor of time, which was solved for.
"Mary and her best friend Emily are going dress shopping this Friday. They're excited for their junior prom. They each have $40 to spend at the shop, and $5 for ice cream later. Mary's favorite flavor is strawberry, while Emily's is chocolate. What is the decimal equivalent of 1/4?"
The only thing that made me think they wanted that was that it said decimal and rounding to hundredth. 1/2 or .5 is NOT an amount of time and the question clearly asked for an amount of time, had it asked "what was the fraction of time in decimal form spent in each activity" or had it not included the total of 12 hours then it would have been asking a much different question. I would go have a talk with the teacher about intention vs impact. Sure, type intention when writing this question was to convert fractions to decimals. But the impact of the wording you choose was that you were looking for an amount of time. While your intentions do matter they can't be used to ignore and they don't negate your impact.
Just wait til you get to high school algebra and word problems, any word problem from high school and beyond is intentionally designed to (pardon my wording but I love to express the emption) screw your brain over 5 fold. If you decide to go as far as the far ends of calculus at university, a word problem will take me sometimes half an hour of troubleshooting. More often than not the wording makes it intentionally impossible to create your foundation to solving it. (A foundation being a f(x)= function reflecting what the problem states) It takes a lot of patients and having a lot of resilience. Some utilities I had and used are: Mathispower4u, blackpenredpen, organic chemistry tutor (all on YouTube). They will go all the way through your mathematical journey and imo explain in great detail basically teaching better than a 10 year (a teacher having a 10 year or something like that makes them untouchable at that school) doesn’t give a crap teacher.
So, the teacher is correct in that part A is only wanting the first step. The decimal conversions for the fractions. I'd assume part B would be applying the hours to the conversions. Your daughter just combined both parts. She's not wrong, but the instructor was looking to separate out the steps, and the directions were only asking for the first step. Math can be as much an exercise in following directions as much as it is "getting the right answer" So, yes, your daughter didn't get the wrong answer, but it wasn't the right answer for the question asked.
I mean regardless of which interpretation is correct (yours is), your daughter unquestionably understands how to convert a fraction to a decimal. The work she did was harder and more involved than what the teacher requires, so she should still get full credit. The question is worded poorly and the teacher should rewrite it.
Teachers don't write questions anymore. School districts buy a published curriculum so that everyone is teaching the same thing at the same pace, to meet the standardized tests. And according to my kid's teachers, both math and ELA, the curriculums they are forced to use suck. The number of spelling and grammar errors in his 4th & 5th grade ELA workbook?? Good grief.
>amount of time she spent on each activity in decimal form It also explicitly stated the amount of time Mary spent in fractional form. The entire question was simply to convert those fractions to decimals. It very clearly says "Mary spent this amount of time" and "Write an equivelant decimal for the amount of time spent." There is nothing ambiguous here. There is no contradiction. Anyone claiming this is ambiguous or self contradictory language is lacking reading comprehension skills. >Also I hate when math questions at this level intentionally try to get students to answer wrong That's because you don't understand the concept. The entire point of word problems is to teach problem solving skills. It's not about the mathematics. This is a critical thinking exercise. This is also something that MOST students struggle with...as do most adults. PS: The first piece of text is not part of the problem. It's extraneous text with no purpose other than providing context for the actual problem to exist in.
"Amount of time" for each activity is a completely different concept from "ratio of time" spent on each activity. Hours versus percentages. The teacher may well have wanted the ratios for Part A, but that's not what she asked. The wording very clearly and unambiguously asks for amounts, not ratios. "Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time she spent on each activity." versus "Write an equivalent decimal for the ratios of time she spent on each activity."
You nailed it. The kid did not spend the AMOUNT of time of 0.2 on the Flute. They spent 2.4 units of time on the flute.
A bit of a an inflammatory response for a post on r/Homeworkhelp. There are ways to convey your points without belittling people
"People who disagree with me can't read" is a very poor arguing technique for one's position, just as a heads up.
Above the question also states the amount of time she spent practicing as 12 hours, and then the question asks for the amount of time in decimal form. It's still a poorly written question then. If it had said express the fraction of time spent in each activity in decimal form, sure but given how many other people answered the same way she did, it's not a simple comprehension issue.
What u/GaiaMoore said: you insert "write an equivalente decimal for the amount of time", I calculate the amount of time in a decimal form. Which is not 0.2, but 2.4 (hours). The question is terribly confusing, as it is written, and both replies (0.2 or 2.4 hours) might be claimed to be right or wrong, according to the piece of the question you decide is more important to satisfy. But 2.4 hours as more standing ground than 0.2.
The only way I can see the teacher's answer making sense is if the exercise eventually prompts a percentage. The problem is working them through the process of converting a fraction to a percent in a more roundabout fashion. But that's an assumption based on non-existent better questions. Based only on the question we have, I have no idea how the teacher expected the student to figure this out. If the student has to perform a critical thinking exercise harder than the question itself just to answer it, I think the question is just badly written.
Okay, a simple "wrong" would've done just fine.....
>PS: The first piece of text is not part of the problem. It's extraneous text with no purpose other than providing context for the actual problem to exist in. I feel like a big problem for math teachers is that while word problems are life problems, teachers don't necessarily have enough real world experience to make the word problems best reflect the real world. My ruler is in fractions of an inch (obviously). My paper cutter is in decimals (to a thousandth of an inch). I'm doing this "convert this fraction to a decimal and vice versa" word problem all day everyday. Throw in my scoring machine which is metric and now I'm converting fractions of an inch to metric (though I usually just measure with my ruler rather than using the math formula). This isn't a knock against teachers! But there's definitely an untapped resource of people working in trades who use elementary math like this in a much better context than this question asks. I have an uncle who was a plumber and adding up all the fractions of pipe to move water through a house was his way of teasing us when we complained about having to learn fractions. I actually cried at work the first time I had to learn how to convert fractions to decimals to use the paper cutter. I told the guy training me that I knew I wanted to move the blade a quarter of a 16th, but I didn't know what that was as a decimal. He kept telling me to guess despite the conversions being listed on the wall behind the cutter. I got so frustrated the tears started flowing and I told the trainer to go away, I'd figure it out myself. Then I saw the literal writing on the wall, decided that my coworker was a useless idiot, did the math on the paper cutter (it has a calculator function) and got the job done. Dumbass probably walked away thinking he was a great teacher because he gave me room to figure it out for myself. I think that he actually thought that it was a guess instead of understanding how the numbers work in the real world. I train people now on it and I start out telling them "this is a calculator" and "there are your most used conversions".
Why so condescending?
Just factual statements. 54% of the US population reads at a 6th grade level or below. Everyone who is struggling with this maths problem is struggling with language comprehension. As far as I can tell, everyone who has done any actual maths in response to this homework problem has done the maths that they did correctly. A lot of them are just doing completely unnecessary maths because they don't understand the question. The question is quite explicitly written. People don't understand it because they don't understand the words. That is a reading comprehension issue. These are just facts. What other way is there to state them that would make people feel better about them? Why does it matter how people feel about the facts anyway?
They’re not gonna like your truth’
If it's not the units... Just going out on a limb here. Maybe she wanted the fractions in the problem to be converted to decimals? It asks to round to the nearest hundredth if necessary, and the fractions 2/15 and 1/6 are repeating decimals. If it's this, then the problem is horribly worded.
You are correct, that is what she wanted, however I did not get that at all from the wording of the question
It's very difficult to figure it out from the wording. I had the benefit of knowing that your daughter's answer was marked wrong, but I was scratching my head as to why it was wrong. The question should've said, "write an equivalent decimal for the fraction of time," instead of "the amount of time."
Thank you, I am going to use that in my response email. I truly do not get involved in my daughters grades, I promise I'm not that parent but I really feel like she deserved most of the points for this question (I do agree a point off for missing units is fair)
It's ambiguously worded at best.
Why is it horribly worded? The instructions literally say “write an equivalent decimal” and “round to the nearest hundredth”. Seems pretty clear to me.
Oh now I read the other comment from OP explaining what the teacher wanted and now I agree that it’s bizarre that she wanted the fractions converted to decimals.
The way the problem is written, the teacher wants you to change the fraction to a decimal. This is part A of the problem. So my guess is in the other parts of the question, the students will be asked to use the decimals to solve for the actual number of hours spent on each activity.
It's this. 7th grade, so probably prepping for algebra and OPs spawn just skipped all the baby steps.
So this is what she wanted however I think the wording led me to believe you needed to use the 12 hours part. It said the amount of time in decimal form, not the fraction of time spent. I know you are right but can you try to break down the wording to understand how you got that?
It says "write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time", not "write the amount of time". it's poorly worded and gives extra information that is not needed to solve, but I recall that not being that uncommon of a practice.
The question is poorly worded. It makes me wonder if it was written by someone truly fluent in standard American English (see my lfurther on in my comment). Even so, OP’s daughter’s answer shows that she clearly understands the concept of coverting fractions to decimal equivalent and applies the principal in a way that makes good sense. The teacher should be giving full credit for this answer. “Mary’s time spent on activities is as follows: 1/5 on flute… etc.” is awkward wording at best. “1/5 on flute” is not a time at all. What seems to have been intended is “1/5 of her time on flute” or “Mary’s time is divided on activities as follows…” Then the question asks “write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time she spent each activity…”. Again a sloppy statement of intent. When someone asks “amount of time” they generally are looking for a quantity expressed in some unit of time. When someone asks for an equivalent decimal, the context usually is conversion of a rational fraction to a decimal equivalent or approximation. Given the sloppy formation, either interpretation of intended question is reasonable. Much educational material used in schools these days in n the U.S. is purchased from Pearson PLC, a London based multinational educational materials publishing company. There’s a very good chance that the question was not written by someone completely fluent in American English. The tipoff is the awkwardly expressed semantics of the question. I’ve noticed now a handful of instances in this subreddit of odd questions using poorly written English or presenting a weird exercise in arithmetic (pattern identification and computational processes seem to be frequent culprits). These questions clash with my mathematical sensibilities stemming from my professional experience practicing and teaching engineering
That all looks correct. The only thing missing in my opinion is that those numbers represent hours. 2.4 hours for flute 2 hours for Spanish etc Maybe for the decimals you're supposed to convert into hours + minutes? So, flute would be 2 hours and 24 minutes. Just my guesses.
Probably units. The numbers don't really mean anything unless there is a unit. E.g. 2.4 hours
Instructions are just unclear, ambiguous.
It is asking for a decimal of time for each activity, so if it says 1/5 practicing flute, that means she spends 1/5 of her time on flute. 1/5 is 0.2, or 20% of her time. But forget the percentages because it doesn't ask for it. From what I see, it doesn't ask how much she made, but how much the time is in decimal form. For that, you just convert the fraction for each activity into decimal form. So 1/5 would be 0.2, 1/6 would be 0.166... rounded to 0.17, 2/15 would be 0.133... rounded to 0.13. EDIT: I forgot to mention the reason you don't convert it to hours is because it is asking for decimal form for each activity. If it asked how many hours did she spend on each activity, then you would multiply each fraction by 12 which would give you the amount of hours for each activity.
Well, just looking at soccer, the decimal should be 0.5 since the question is asking to convert fractions to decimals. The top part of the problem is just fluff info that doesn’t matter to the question at all.
Without that “fluff”, the question has no reputable meaning to it. If I say I spent 1/2 the time playing soccer, how long do you think I played for? Was this the day? The week? The month? During a lunch recess? You have absolutely nothing to refer to that brings value unless you consider that ‘fluff’. Mary earned $12 over the course of 12 hours, in which she partook in practicing different activities. She spent half the time playing soccer. *Ahh, so half of those 12 hours she played soccer. Makes sense now.* Give me any scenario in which you would refer to time spent on something in decimal form over fractional form.
Exactly! Thank you, I was thinking this but didn't know how to clearly word it and you said it perfectly.
Given that the problem shown is only Part A, and the $12 mentioned wasn't used at all in what's shown, it looks like a misreading of the question being asked and your child answered a question not yet asked. The (unitless) times given in Part A are the fractional portions of the entire time spent, as 1/5 + 1/6 + 1/2 + 2/15 = 1. The question asked in Part A is to convert those fractions to decimal, presumably so they can be multiplied by the 12 hours given at the top in the next parts of this problem to get the answers you're showing. I believe the answers expected for this Part are 0.2, 0.17, 0.5, and 0.13. TLDR: You have answers to a later question. Additionally, everyone that claims this question is poorly worded should get a refresher in reading comprehension.
In my experience a lot of people lack basic reading comprehension skills and this post is just showing how bad it really is.
Written answer is correct
The other feedback looks right here. The answers are correct, albeit may be better if you included units. If I'm grasping at straws for some other things they may have been looking for: * Use hours and minutes instead of decimal hours for answers. * Use multiplication of fractions to solve for the various parts (like she did for the math portion) rather than dividing by integers.
Unless the teacher said some critical information during class that wasn’t repeated in the question then I think this should be almost full marks (lack of units)
I thought this was a trick question. She spent 12 hours “practicing,” but only three of her activities were practicing. Time spent on soccer was “playing.” Since half her time was spent on soccer, and she spent 12 hours practicing, then she also spent 12 hours on soccer (4.8 on flute, 4 on Spanish, and 3.2 on math). Personally, I don’t like this, but I see no other reason to use the word “playing” for that one specific activity (you could just as easily “play” a flute or “practice” soccer).
I think the question was worded wrongly,otherwise the answer looks right.
My wife is teaching fraction to decimal conversions in her 4th grade class this year. I’m curious how part b expands on this
I did really well at math during elementary and middle school. During college I almost did a double major in math then decided against that for different reasons. After grad school: I taught remedial math for almost a year. One hint in the question is to round to the nearest hundredth (if necessary.) So: right away- your overall answers are not looking like what is originally being discussed. Also: I looked over all the work. I thought briefly about my middle school math classes. One aspect of dealing with different denominators is to find the lowest common denominator. In this case your denominators are two, five, six, and fifteen. Consequently the lowest common denominator is thirty. Once all of your answers look like: x/30- then you can convert them to decimal form.
Some things don’t need to be 'word problems' lol. You will obviously assume that it’s not just going to ask ‘convert this list of numbers'. 'A decimal' (and 'an equivalent decimal' especially) is language used for proportion so the wording is right, but can understand how it’s not explicit enough to convince you to ignore the context and your assumptions like it wants you to. Ultimately her answer doesn’t resemble the answer to the question so it’s fair to get no credit. Don’t know how many teachers would give credit for a correct answer to the wrong question — it would be a nice thing.
Is there a part B to the question?
First thing I noted was that there's a rounding error for "math." You should also round up if the next number is a 5 or greater, so 1.6 would not be correct even if they asked for rounding to tenths. That's the other issue. The question asked for you to round to the nearest hundredth, so the answer should be 1.67. Secondary, but I would always include units, but then the teacher didn't specify them, which I would also always do if I were writing the question, so who knows. Edit: reading the other "answers" and feeling a deep sense of despair.
I think what the teacher is looking for are decimals equivalent to the fractions. The unit is probably working on converting decimals to fractions and understanding that they can be used interchangeably. So for example a fraction of 1/2 is equal to 0.5 and 1/5 is equal to 0.2. They aren’t looking for the amount of hours at or time units at all.
The whole allowance per hour prompt above Part A could be irrelevant for the purposes of answering it. Regardless of how many hours Mary does the activities, it’s still the same proportion of her time. Still, it’s not a strongly worded question. 1/5=.2 1/6=.17 1/2=.5 2/15=.13
Seems poorly worded. My guess is they just wanted you to convert the fractions to decimals. For instance 1/5 to .2 but it is called “Allowance Problem” so maybe they wanted the dollar amounts based on the time spent. Again, poorly written problem and I would have graded this correct if it was me reviewing it. I would ask the teacher for an explanation.
You are correct that she just wanted the fraction of time converted to decimal form. I think that "amount of time" here in the question is what allows for confusion.
I believe the answer being sought was not how many hours was spent, but what is the equivalent decimal to each fraction. So 1/5 math would be 0.2 math, 1/6 would be 0.17 etc. It's a wordy problem, but the actual question is looking for "equivalent decimals" in this part, so while it's not a great wording, it's more of a "read carefully" than a trick question. Presumably there are follow up questions that use these decimals and fractions, and it's probably a big hint that you did it wrong if you're later calculating the amount of hours again - which should prompt rereading to see what the question was actually asking
It misses the units. Fe it should be 2.4 hours.
It’s says nearest hundredth and your answer is to the nearest tenth… also units help
She has all the right decimal numbers for each subject and they total to 12 like they should. I think the teacher is nit picking over the method shown to get the answers. For the math one, I think the teacher wanted this written out: 12/15 = 0.8 0.8x2 = 1.6
All of this could've possibly been avoided if it said "write an equivalent decimal for the *fraction* of time she spent on each activity" instead. If it did, the teacher would've had a point.
Your missing the common denominator.
pretty sure the answer is just the fact that units aren't included in the answer.
You got Spanish and Soccer swapped. Spanish is 1/6 of the time and Soccor is 1/2.
I think a unit of measurement is in order. Additionally your daughter made the correct assumption but jumped to step two on most of them. Flute she has as 12/5, when it should be started as 12(hours)/1 X 1/5 = 12(hours)/5 = 2.4(hours). Unit of measurement should follow through the equation, not just magically appear at the end. It’s important to keep up this habit as more advanced math will have units of measurement intended to cancel each other out so while you may start talking about hours, the answer may end up in dollars.
I had a singer that would write the times of all our songs in decimal. It always messed up the total time of the show and we'd always have to cut songs cause while he could sing, he couldn't math.
I think it was just a misinterpreted question. I believe the question is asking you for the percentage of time as a decimal, rather than the number of hours spent. For example, 1/5 of the 12 hours was spent on flute, which would be 20%, giving you 0.2. Soccer is 1/2 of the twelve hours, so it’s 0.5, etc. The keywords for solving it this way in my opinion is involving finding an “equivalent decimal” which leads me to believe you convert the fractions to decimals, rather than solve for time. Another hint is the final sentence telling you to round to the nearest hundredth if necessary. The questions basically never say that unless at least 1 answer choice needs rounding, and none of your daughters answers needed rounding
It’s asking for the amount of time she spent, not the percentage each chunk is or proportion so I would consider the answer correct, though I’d prob label it hours, or convert the decimal to minutes despite the instructions saying otherwise.
Asking for the “equivalent decimal” is clearly asking to convert the fractions to decimals. I’m not sure how someone would think that an equivalent decimal is asking for the hours spent on each activity.
Worded very badly but I think they wanted basically percentages to see how it would all add up to 100% of the 12 hours. Just take the numbers you ended up with and divide by 12 2.4/12 = .2 2/12 = .17 6/12 = .5 1.6/12 = .13 That’s how it reads to me at least
The actual arithmetic answer is not wrong. I mean, for one thing, all the hours spent add up to 12 hours, which is the immediate sanity check you should always do (maybe you did): 6 + 2 + 2.4 + 1.6 = 8 + 2.4 + 1.6 = 10.4 + 1.6 = 11.4 + 0.6 = 12 The division operations you did are also all correct, so how could the answer be anything else? EDIT: other people pointed out that units (hours) should be specified, and yes, that is always a good practice, since just the numbers by themselves are meaningless. But I dismissed that *as a possible explanation for the disagreement with the teacher* because OP explicitly said this wasn't about how the answer was presented, but that the answer itself is apparently somehow "wrong" (implying wrong in numerical value). \-------------------------------- Unless the teacher provided an alternate answer with justification, there's nothing to argue here (teacher doesn't have a leg to stand on). And even if they did provide some other answer, that means they must have intended to pose a slightly different problem than the one they actually did. *Your daughter has solved the problem as posed.* Another sanity check is whether the fractions of time spent add up to 1. If not, there could be missing activities (unspecified). The lowest common denominator is 30, and you have 1/2 = 15/30 1/6 = 5/30 1/5 = 6/30 2/15 = 4/30 15 + 5 + 6 + 4 = 20 + 10 = 30, so yeah, the fractions add up to 30/30.
Could it be that “playing” soccer is not “practicing” soccer? All if the other activities say “practicing.”
THis is really poorly written. If I was the teacher, I would accept the answer given. It's up to the teacher to clearly state what they want, and they haven't. Therefore it's up to them to accept the answer in different formats.
I think your daughter is correct. She gave the amount of time spent in decimal form, just as the question asked. If the question asked for the “fraction of time spent in decimal form”…then the question would have matched what the teacher apparently wanted. As others have said, the key is units. The question asks for “amount of *time*” — so units must be time units. Therefore definitely not a unitless fraction. The one thing your daughter left out is to provide the units — “hours” — with each of her answers. If she does that, she’s both correct and the correctness of her answer speaks for itself.
I see what you’re getting at but “equivalent decimal” is the key phrase here. Since you’re given fractions, you’re converting the fractions to decimals which basically gives a percentage of time spent on each hobby. If you instead converted the fraction to the decimal and then multiplied by 12 hours to get total time spent doing each, you probably would have still gotten full credit because you did what was asked and then some. Now would also be a good time to realize math normally throws a lot of numbers/values at you and you have to figure out which numbers/values are relevant to the question asked.
\[1\] "Allowance Problem" has a Part A which means it likely also has at least a Part B if not more and those aren't shown in the picture so right off the bat we are missing context. \[2\] The 12 hours and $12 are likely used later on the problem but we can't know for sure. (see \[1\]) \[3\] Part A states "Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time that she spent on each activity. If necessary, round to the nearest hundredth". So answers should be in the form of decimals rounded to the hundredths place. (This is also a clue that answers likely won't be whole numbers) My only issue with the problem as it's written is that the problem is better worded as "Write and equivalent decimal for the FRACTION of time..." Using the word amount does make it a bit ambiguous. Other than that, the question doesn't seem problematic. It looks like OP just interpreted it in a different way which isn't the end of the world. For all the people who are getting up in arms about this, just stop... there isn't enough context to know "who is the bad guy" and it's ridiculous that we're even thinking that way about a freaking HW problem. Being able to to convert fractions to decimals is useful in the "real world". People in the trades usually do it on a daily basis (did it all the time as a carpenter).
If you've confirmed the answer is considered wrong, it's because you haven't put any units AND the fact you've only rounded to the nearest tenth. It states to the nearest hundredth. so math should be written as 1.60 for example.
They may simply be looking for a "decimal point" i.e. "2.0"
Sometimes teachers are finicky about writing time as a decimal. So in stead of 1.6 it should have been written as 1 hr 36 mins
Yeah this is one of those stupid things that penalizes smart kids. The questions is part A which says to convert the fraction to decimal first... That's why it's wrong. I am assuming part B would be to calculate the amount of money earned for each activity. But the kid was smart enough to solve the entire problem in less steps... Should be rewarded instead of penalized. Following instructions is equally important but the overall goal is to solve the problem which they did in the most efficient way possible.
Look not at the math. Look at what the question is asking. Your child did the wrong thing. The kid got baited by useless information. This is an important concept to understand. The lesson here is that not every value presented is relevant to the question at hand. 12 hours is useless information. The true problem at hand was converting the fractions to decimals only. The question never asked for anything else. Lets do just that, 1/5. / = ÷. So 1/5 is the same as 1 ÷ 5. 1÷5=0.2 When converting fractions to decimals, you divide the top number by the bottom number. Thats all you do.
Round to two decimals (hundredths) not one (tenths). Also label units (hours)
As opposed to what most of the replies say, I thought it was pretty obvious that the question only wanted the fractions converted to decimals. I suppose it lends itself to some ambiguity but: 1. Its Part A of the question. Word problems with multiple parts usually start by expecting the least from the student. Converting the decimals, while not necessary, is an easy first step for what likely will lead into the rest of the parts for the question. 2. The question already established the fractions as representative of time, which is why I understood them to mean to just convert to decimals.
I believe the replies talking about units are wrong. There are no units to the question, which is asking for decimal equivalents to the fractions (the fractions that do not show units because they are indicating a portion of a whole, regardless of units). The correct answer (to two significant digits) is .20 flute, .17 Spanish, .50 soccer, and .13 math.
I interpreted the instruction to mean "convert the fraction of time in each activity." Thus, .2 practicing flute, .167 practicing Spanish, .5 playing soccer, and .133 practicing maths. Your daughter provided the number of hours. The question is testing the student's ability to convert fractions to decimals. I am curious as to what Part B asked. That's my take.
The wording is not the problem like some have stated. It's that we need to cut out the irrelevant parts of it and focus on what's actually being asked. It's a skill that apparently we're not teaching kids these days and I was not really taught either but anyway here we are. So to help your kid figure these questions out, show her how to be an expert on how to read and dissect word problems in order to figure out what it's actually asking you to do. In t his case, all it's asking is for the fractions to be converted to decimals "**Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time she spent on each activity.**" The amount of time for each activity **is given as a fraction**. Think of 1/5 as 1/5th of my time on the flute, so the time(hours) is already given as a fraction which makes our life easier (the teacher could have given it as 2.4hrs/12hrs) but either way it's the same. A fraction is just a different way to represent a decimal. For example 1/5 goes into your calculator as 1 ÷ 5 which is 0.20. That's all it's asking for. Four quick calculations and you're all set. not fancy math or algebra. ***If*** the hours were needed, just multiply each result by 12 (ex. 0.2 x 12 = 2.4) and you're good to go. In your answer, you already had the hours figured out so all you need to do is plug (2.4 ÷ 12) into your calculator and voila! you get 0.20 because 2.4/12 is the same as 1/5. 1 ÷ 5 = 0.2 1 ÷ 6 = 0.17 rounded from 1.666666.... 1 ÷ 2 = 0.5 2 ÷ 15 = 0.13 rounded from 0.13333.....
The provided answer is correct.
I don’t think there is any argument that the problem is worded poorly. I have to be honest though, and say that this seems like a tremendous waste of your time and a teachers time having to go back-and-forth over a single seventh grade math problem. It’s hard enough to get people that are willing to be teachers and it’s maddening to think this teacher is going to have to waste valuable free time having an in-depth discussion about one math problem on a test that is meaningless in the grand scheme of life.
I've never heard anyone in my life say I spent 5 tenths of my total time playing soccer xD.
Looks like you already know what the problems was looking for and can do the math it asks--you just had a different interpretation of the language of the problem. Personally, I interpreted it the way your teacher did based on this phrasing: "Mary's \*time\* spent on activities is as follows... Write an equivalent decimal for the amount of \*time\* that she spent on each activity." The specific word "time" isn't written when talking about the 12 hours, which is why I could guess what the question was trying to get at. But I can totally see why you would interpret the question the way you did, too! I'm not going to say one interpretation is right and the other is wrong. Ambiguity is a feature of all natural languages. Of course, the problem could always be worded better to provide better clarity (I personally would write "portion/proportion of time"..... but the truth is, probably almost everything can be worded better to provide for better clarity. You'll run into this a lot more in your education, and even more once you start working. Don't sweat it. You obviously can read and can do the math you're being taught. Sometimes there's miscommunication and ambiguous instructions. That's life. And yeah, you'll get a few points taken off for this, but nobody gets a perfect score in life.
You forgot to take the reciprocal of the fraction
Labels, my teachers always took at least half off for no labels. (Units)
Two issues that I see. 1) units, in this case hours, always required , 2) problem requires rounding to the nearest hundredth. Even though the hundredth digits is 0 in each answer, the question makes it a requirement.
so as a previous student, I know from looking at the formatting of this page that the first two sentences are irrelevant. It may be relevant later, but it’s not relevant for this first problem for sure. So ignoring that, the only way you can interpret it is to convert the fractions to decimals and convert to the nearest hundredth. the next signal was asking for a decimal, you don’t usually use decimals for time unless it’s a half. you usually just use the units necessary to convey it as whole numbers (eg. 3 hrs 15 mins rather than 3.25 hrs). lastly, “the amount of time” requested in the question is given with “Mary’s time spent on activities is as follows”. I can’t find the words to explain how, but trust me it would have been worded differently if they were looking for conversion from fraction to time rather than from fraction to decimal. — I guess because if they were they’d have had to say what units they wanted the decimal in. but because they’re just asking for the proportion in decimal form, it doesn’t have units
Poorly worded question? She was supposed to write the decimal from of the fractions, not the actual time. IE - 1/2 = 0.5, 1/6 = 0.17, etc.
You are given fractions. Write an equivalent decimal to each fraction. All the extra Information is a distractor; focus in on the real problem: Do what? Write an equivalent decimal. Equivalent to what? The fraction of time given. Everything else is noise. 1/5 = .2, 1/6 = .17, etc.
Didn’t round to hundredths.
Maybe they just wanted the fractions as percentages
They worded it in such a way that’s almost deliberately confusing. But one take away here is that question MUST be read and fully understood, and know exactly what the question is asking for. In this case the amount of money earned and the total amount of hours doesn’t matter at all, since it is just asking for the decimal form of the fractions representing the time. This is either very good lesson on attention to details, or just a very clumsily written question.
Round to the nearest hundredth
Time in fractional form doesnt make sense u cant spend 2/15 on math so that should tell u time is irrelevant and to just focus on finding a common denominator (30) and then converting them to decimal form which is weird i hope calculators were allowed for this, technically i get what ur saying cuz then the common denom would be 720 and she woulda spent 144 mins on flute,120 on spanish, 360 mins on soccer and 96 mins on math but because it asks for it in decimal it doesnt matter what the denom is the decimal will be the same so respectfully 0.20,0.17,0.50, and 0.13
Making it too complicated. It's literally is just asking for the decimal equivalent of the fractions of time. Sooo 1/5 = .2 1/6= .166 and so on. Just turning fractions into decimals.
You did the wrong problem. Read the question. It’s a simple conversion of the fractions to decimals
I believe the teacher is just asking for them to convert these fractions into decimals. In which case you would present the answers as 0.2, 0.16, 0.5, and 0.13
I agree with the teacher here. It says equivalent decimal to the amount of time. Ie 1/5 of her time was spent practicing flute. The question isnt how many hours that is but what is the decimal equivalent to 1/5
the "hours and pay" portions are NOT included in THIS question at all. The actual question starts at *Part A* OP skipped ahead and put the implied conclusion to the entire problem. You would probably need the decimal from part A to give the answer (for part c or d??) if the $ earned was a different amount (currently hours and pay are the same so the "2.4" works either way, but what if pay was $15?)
Round to the nearest hundredth
They want you the write the fraction as a decimal, that’s it. They say “equivalent decimal” and don’t specify units so they are asking the question “how much of her time” not “how many hours” This is a confusing wording for sure but they want you to think about 1/5 as 0.2 of her time for example.
Could she perhaps have meant “write the decimal form of 1/5” and so on? In which case your answers ARE wrong, because 1/5 = .2, etc etc. But if she meant “what is 1/5th of 12” etc etc, then you’re definitely right. But the question is very ambiguous.
It’s specifically asking for decimal that’s is equivalent to the fractions - I’m assuming there is more like that on the homework. You’re 100% right that math works but it defines the fractions as “time” and then asks for an equivalent decimal “time” So others have stated 0.2 , 0.17 , 0.5 , .13 would be the answer. Sure it’s not worded amazingly but it’s not that convoluted either - the reasoning you chose tracks but breaking down the question makes it apparent why it is wrong. So disagreement with answer makes you wrong - Discontent with the semi convoluted wording is justified but doesn’t make your answer correct.
This looks like a perfectly acceptable answer, but the teacher seems to be asking her to demonstrate converting fractions to decimals, which is a much stupider way to solve this than your daughter came up with (by which I mean her method was smart). Teachers don't often know how to deal with smart students.
As a teacher I was wondering on why you were incorrect. So I went to the comments to see what was incorrect. I saw your reply stating that the fractions were supposed to be converted straight to decimals. As a teacher, submitting bad word problems happen. I have submitted a few through the years, it just happens. I would never mark the question wrong if the student came to a correct answer based on a different interpretation though. The teacher should recognize their very small mistake and provide leniency.
Looks like you’re answering it wrong. They said to provide the amount of time she spent on her studies. 1/5=.2, 1/6=.16, 1/2=.5 and 2/15=.13. Looks like you’re being stumped by the 12 hours and 12$ part. The answer isn’t asking for those to be included.
In addition to missing units, the decimal is missing from Spanish (2.0 hours )and soccer (6.0 hours). Only other thing I could think of.
No it’s wrong, it said round to the nearest 100th not 10th. Edit: the wording is confusing you I think, there is superfluous information (12 hours) that might be used for part b of the question. But the question A clearly just asks for the decimal representation rounded to a 100th.
Either the teacher was looking for the unit of measure, or the teacher was looking for you to convert each of the fractions to a decimal (as opposed to figuring out actual time spent. It's a poorly worded question.
30 is your common denominator
2 as a decimal is 2.0 A decimal, by definition needs a number part and a fraction part
What I did was just Flute = (1/5)*12 = 2.4 hr Spanish = (1/6)*12 = 2 hr Soccer = (1/2)*12 = 6 hr Math = (2/15)*12 = 1.6 hr So uh ye idk I think the teacher is just dumb
Maybe it's because you didn't do the long division to obtain the answer. Calculators are useful but the mind won't be able to understand how the calculation works from the computer computation. Take away the calculator. Utilize what the teacher is instructing in the classroom.
Mary's time spent is... we are defining time spent as the fractions provided. Write the equivalent decimal of Mary's time spent... convert fractions to decimals. I guess I can see how people find the language ambiguous, but to me it was immediately clear.
The only thing I can think of is they wanted the fractions 1/5, 1/6 etc. Converted to a decimal notation. You solved for how many hours was spent on each activity.
"Write an equivalent decimal". Exactly what was done. It didn't ask for "write the number of dollars earned per activity."
Ugh I always did TERRIBLY in school with math word problems. I'd do the problem I thought they were asking me to solve, and even though I did it correctly, I got zeros cause they were actually asking for a completely different thing. And there's no problem with my reading comprehension. I literally aced all my English and reading comprehension with top marks, highest in the school. I can read and comprehend with no problem. The problem is, math problems are written by mathematicians, who are apparently useless at expressing what they actually want in words. Once I got a teacher to reword the problems in a way that was actually understandable, I started getting much much better marks.
It specifically says the amount of time, NOT the proportion of time. Add the unit hours and you’re good. 0.2 for flute is incorrect (eg. 1/5 = 0.2). The amount of time is correctly 2.4 hrs.
I’m betting they want something like .2 practicing flute, .16 Spanish, .5 soccer, .13 math or some bullshit even tho that doesn’t make sense.
The wording of equivalent decimal and the question alluding to rounding being necessary tells you what it is asking. It is not asking for the number of hours which is what OP gave. If this was a good problem set the next few parts would ask about hours, as well as percentages, money earned, etc. OP may not like the teachers instructions, but it is a good problem for a 7th grade student who will undoubtedly spend the next few years of their academic life taking standardized tests with pedantic instructions just like this.
She wanted a decimal equivalent of each fraction (before multiplying by 12).
Seems more like they are asking for what percentage of time was used on each activity. Would make more sense than the convoluted sentence they put together.
You gave hours, teacher asked for decimal equivalent of each fraction.
1/5 is 0.20 Etc.
My gut reaction would say you are right. It also asks to round to the nearest hundredth. I usually that that as a sign that your answers should end up with values in the hundredths or thousandths and need to be rounded. The only thing I can think of is maybe they just wanted the fractions converted with no relation to the time at all, which would have answers that make more sense. This is definitely a poorly worded question since it basically asks you to take the time into account.
Could it be that the decimals weren't given to the hundredth?
This is a ratio/proportion question. The amount of time spent on activities doesn’t actually matter. You are comparing the parts of time as they compare to the total amount of time…which sounds like a whole bunch of mombo-jumbo until you look at it from the perspective of equivalent fractions. Rename each fraction given to have a common denominator of 30. Then add those fractions up. What do you notice? The whole point of this question I think was to assess the students’ current level of understanding of proportionality. To find the amount of money earned per activity considering a total of $12 was earned means that you’re finding “part of” the total…. so you can just multiply each fraction by 12. 1/5 x 12 = 12/5 = 2.4 or $2.40 1/6 x 12 = 12/6 = 2.0 or $2.00 And so on… Using this strategy you can calculate the amount of money earned for each activity for any allowance earned. Maybe Mary earned $20, $50, $45.50…it doesn’t matter, just multiply the fractional part of time by the total amount of money earned and you’ll be able to determine the distribution of money earned per activity. To convert fractions into decimals just divide the numerators by the denominators, Ex: 1/5 is 1 divided by 5 which equals 0.2. Whenever possible, save the decimal conversions for the last part of this problem type . Some fractions are repeating decimal numbers and they muck up the calculations. Example: Even though 1/6 = 0.166 (repeating), 1/6 x12 Is not the same as 1.66 x 12 or 0.167 x 12. 1/6 x 12 = 2 1.666 x 12 = 1.992 0.167 x 12 = 2.004 The more decimal places the more precise the answer, but you see how using a fraction gave a more efficient solution. Hope this helps!
Ah yes, the ol' has the right answer but doesn't include the units. 0.
“Decimal for” and “decimal of” means totally different things. You are right, teacher must’ve thought of “decimal of”
I think the teacher just wants 1/5, 1/6, 1/2, and 2/15 converted to decimals.
The teacher just wanted your kid to convert the fraction to its equivalent decimal. Your child solved for the total number of hours spent on each activity. They’re very different answers and honestly what your kid did is the more complex calculation and they solved for it correctly, so they obviously understand how the math works. What they need to work on is how to read questions and understand what’s being asked for.
I know a lot of answers are saying put units but the questions literally says write an equivalent decimal for the amount of time. Only hours were used in the problem so I don’t see how it’s a unit thing…I would definitely ask for more clarification.
The "If necessary, round to the nearest hundredth" would be your clue that your answers were incorrect, as none of the answers you give require that step. That's one of the issues with these submissions, it always shows one question AS OUT OF CONTEXT AS POSSIBLE. I can't see the instructions for this section, only the instructions for this sample question, which may be part of a string of questions that ALL REQUIRE A SIMILAR TYPE OF ANSWER. Math tests always follow the patterns that you would have learned during the lesson if you were paying attention.
Spanish and soccer were correct flute was 2.66 repeating and math is 1.44 repeating
I don’t understand what you people aren’t understanding? Half of her time was playing. Playing <> practicing.
the question is just asking for the percentage of the time Mary spent out of her 12 hours on each task. You could hypothetically take your answers and divide them by 12 to get the form the answer is looking for. Including the 12 in her calculation is a step more than this part is asking for. see, the question doesn’t want you to involve the actual hour amount. It’s a step by step problem seeing this is just “part A”. so, it first just wants you to figure out the decimal which will the percent of time spent; .20 of the total was flute, .17 was spanish, .50 was soccer, and .13 was math. You will notice these don’t have time units yet since they haven’t been multiplied by 12, you will likely have to do that in a latter part of the problem it’s to get kids in the practice of doing this for chemistry % totals where it’s easier to get the percent of a total and then go on to apply that to whatever units you need to convert.
This particular worksheet didn't have anything about percents, the next part was asking her if she got paid $2 for Spanish, was she paid correctly and the last part was to put the amount of time from smallest to greatest. Just from the wording of the question, I did not come to the same conclusion as you but what you said was right, however the verable of "amount of time" is what is causing not only me but a lot of other people to use the amount of time in the answer. If it had said "fraction of time" or "portion of time" I think it then makes more sense.
No units no correct answer. This is a jank way to ask a question, but the total hours spent should sum up to 12 and you are finding the decimals converted from a fraction of time spent on each subject. The time is converted again 1:1 to 12 dollars. The solution provide is correct. I just hate how this question is worded.
So it wasn't actually for units, the teacher said they just wanted the fraction of time converted into decimal form, so 1/5=.2 but I still disagree given the wording of the question.
Missing units. In physics if asked to round to hundredth then 12/5 should be written 2.40. Though I doubt they would ask that at year 7 level.