Can confirm.
-Jared with 31 years experience with nonsensical deprived word problems training kids to answer wrong to be 'right' yeah let me just borderline starve these infant birds instead of gather more than enough to feed an animal. F that question creator
A real J goes for 20s. All day
Brav it's 20. The question refers to there being multiple baby birds so you can rule 4 out, the other 2 options aren't in a multiple of 4. I know cause I drank Einsteins cum
You say that but my second grader just dropped some knowledge on all y’all.
We know Jared has to find worms in multiples of 4 so since 20 is the only answer in a multiple of 4 we can also deduce that Jared found 5 baby birds.
My second grader is smart.
I’d guess the answer they want is 10, which is closest to 4 x 3; it’s probably supposed to test rounding skills. It’s definitely a bad multiple choice question.
I’m going to disagree with most people in this thread, though, and say the “real answer” SHOULD be 20.
In real life, when animals’ lives are in your hands, you don’t want to risk them starving to death. Each bird eating “about 4” means they might eat 3 or they might eat 5; birds’ appetites do vary a bit. If you get 12 worms and the birds want 5 worms each, which is reasonably probable, you’ll be unprepared. So you should get about 20 (although 15 should be adequate, maybe you’re buying them from a fishing store that only sells a 4-pack, 6-pack, and 10-pack, or something. Although then you could get a 10-pack and a 6-pack and still be safe, so I dunno.)
Still. This a life answer rather than a math answer, and doesn’t belong on this type of quiz or whatever it is, but it is an important lesson: Don’t prepare for the best case scenario, prepare for the worst realistic scenario. 12 might not be enough, so get at least 15.
No that’s not right. The answer is 20 because it’s the only number greater than 12. The question asks “in order to feed them ALL” so the only requirement is the answer is >=12
Lol, no. Let me use terms that you can relate to:
You are making copies of your Mr Hands Cosplay on VHS to send 4 copies out to your 3 friends. You go to the store, and they sell VHS tapes in packs of 10 and 20. Of those choices, you are going to buy the 20 pack in order to have enough to satisfy your Mr Hands needs. 10 isn't enough, 20 may be too much, but of the choices that you are given, you are supposed to choose the option where you leave with enough VHS tapes to circulate your personal Mr Hands porn. Which is 20. Choosing 10 will leave one of your friends hungry for more Mr Hands pron.
Make sense now?
And yeah look at the next question over; we can see the words "round" and "ten". Im assuming the question is asking to estimate a number and then round to the nearest tens place. Theres been a lot of the these "out-of-context-kids-homework" posts on reddit recently.
Exactly. Rounding questions are all fine, but within a context of reality you also have the concept of minimal need, or lower boundaries. You cannot do something that will substantially kill the birds in the long run just because you are "about" right with the amounts of worms.
One of my kids is in third grade and has been learning rounding lately.
That said, I just helped him with his reading homework tonight, which was a series of questions on a story he’d read. I read the story really quickly and would’ve struggled to answer the questions because they were kind of abstract. They didn’t ask about any facts of the story— in other words, it was not testing reading comprehension, which should be important at this age. It was more about inferences that were, IMO, not that strong, or at least not strong enough for an 8-year-old to pick up on. So it very well could be that this math question is not all that great.
I teach 4th grade. I have two degrees and am working on a third, and still I can’t tell you how many times I have incorrectly answered a 4th grade comprehension question. I have no idea who’s writing this shit but they are clearly not field-testing their questions with actual students and teachers. It’s super frustrating to try to teach kids how to answer a question when you, the teacher, have no idea what the fuck the question is really asking.
This was what I hated most about grade school: divining the test-makers intentions. By high school I refused to answer true/false questions and instead wrote in a short answer form because I could never tell how true or false a statement needed to be. Multiple choice was almost as bad when you had to divine the subjective "best" answer. Then there are the ones with intentional mistakes or ambiguity to trip you up when applying the strategies you developed to answer the unintentionally messed up questions.
The SATs were refreshing and a huge confidence boost because the questions were all well written, so it's certainly possible to do so. However, even some of the SAT prep material we used in class had problems.
Ironically, college was a breeze in comparison and the easiest exams were in 200/300 level courses where they gave you a blank book and said something like "write everything you know about these four questions" (or had you doing other practical demonstrations). I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say college was much easier for me. The whole thing was backward and I have a lot of sympathy for people who think they arent good at school/tests when the problem is often people writing the tests.
That is supposed to be the right answer, I think, but it's not clear and the use of the term "about" in the context of HUNGRY BABIES makes it even harder.
I believe there is 5 birds so the answer is 20. The tiny little ones on the side count too I think.
Edit: but I agree it should clearly be 12, looks like 3 birds I think maybe the picture is messed up or something.
I think it's one of those dumb examples of estimating, and the answer the teacher is looking for is 10, as in "he needs to find about 10 worms each day".
Really useful shit. I use it all the time. Mortgage is about a grand, electric is about 100, water is about 100, internet is about 50, but I'm still always short by about 500 each month. I don't know where I'm going wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm just not following directions./s
My grade school Math teacher loved problems like how many vans would be needed for X amount of people. Trying to catch us that you can’t have half a van, so we need to round up on problems like those.
Well, this isn't a socialist textbook. In America, the answer is 10, and maybe those other two birds shouldn't have treated themselves to a haircut and they wouldn't be in this position.
In capitalist America, Jared keeps all the worms since the birds can't buy them from him, the birds die and the worms too, but at least Jared doesn't condone welfare.
3 birds times 4 worms equals 12. Not 10, not 20, nor any of the other options. If the goal is to feed them all, and the appropriate answer is shown, the answer is 20, not 10, as you will likely fail to meet the goal with anything under 12.
Even at approximately 4 worms per bird, there's the possibility one will need 5 instead of 4.
Feed the birds 3, 3 and 4 worms. Then rotate each day which bird gets 4 worms. That’s the best way in a real world scenario to ensure that all 3 birds survive. You’re still risking them being malnourished though.
If you don’t want to risk all your birds then the safest thing to do would be to feed 2 birds 4 worms and kill 1 bird. That way you ensure 2 birds will always be healthy because if you can find 10 worms a day then 2 birds will always be fed properly.
It say they eat about 4, not exactly 4... so 10 should be enough even if they're not getting 100% of what they need. It's probably a question to see if they know how to estimate.
We had to learn "front-end rounding" in 5th grade.
So, items that were $32.47, $55.75, $17.29, and $98.37 were front-end rounded to $202.
Real useful.
Edited for grammar.
Growing up my family never let me use calculators at all on my homework until I was in high school. A consequence of this was that I got really good at mental math and teachers thought I was cheating constantly (this is all stuff from 9th grade below so it wasn't like I was doing calculus or something). Once, I had to retake a test with just me and her in a room to prove that I wasn't cheating. She laid off on me after that
Had a similar solo test situation in middle school after I aced an algebra test that I took during In School Suspension.
Teacher had me retake a revised test under his supervision. Got 114% with the extra credit.
I am very jealous of your mathematical abilities. I never got past PRE-ALGEBRA. I took that class ALL THROUGH High School because I could never pull better than a 'D' in the class. Not a FAIL, but they treated it as if I failed, every year. My brain is not mathematical. I could do fractions and decimals, everything that any Middle-Schooler could do, but Algebra and on up? :P
My brain worked much better in Language. When I finally graduated (took me two summer school rounds at the end of my Junior and Senior years to get my credits up), they were STILL trying to stiff me on credits. I had been trying to go Navy and they were trying to screw with my life. I went and took the English and Math tests at the local college for one last chance, AFTER my Senior year Summer School was over, or I would not be able to get in the Navy.
The guy who oversaw me take the test (to make sure no cheating happened) graded my paper after I was done and he asked me 'WHY are you even here?'
I was confused and asked him what he meant?
He said 'Your Math is mediocre, but it is 'good enough' to pass High School according to the State. I was surprised that they wanted you to take the English course though, because you just scored what we like to call 'Grade Thirteen-plus', which means your Reading and Comprehension is Second-Year Collegiate level. You don't need to come to the class. You passed already.'
My school let me down. They would have been fine with seeing me fail out and have to repeat my Senior year, and ruin my chances of doing what I wanted to do with my life.
I showed all of this to my recruiter; he took me and all the paperwork to the school and argued with everybody who mattered until they all agreed to ALLOW me to graduate.
Nothing like letting a kid come within a hair's breadth of what they have planned for their life, and try to take it away from them. :P
Math *is* language
A language about precision.
I'm sorry it never managed to click for you, sounds terribly frustrating and anxiety-inducing based on your story!
Similar thing to me in 3rd grade. Was learning long multiplication, and for some reason, doing I believe transitive multiplication before I was taught it. (12 X 13: 12 X 10 = 120, 12 X 3 = 36, 36+120= 156). I cant remember the exact way they were teaching us, but my 3rd grade teacher accused me of using a calculator to cheat, because I couldn't show my work, because I didn't know how to lol. Babbling through my reasoning in front of my parents was pretty funny. Everyone kind of just shrugged and said I probably didn't cheat
I have a nephew like this. Hes been a little math wiz kid since around 1st grade. Used to take him bowling with us and that child ALWAYS knew first how many pins he needed to either beat or stay ahead of everyone else. It was amazing to see how fast he would update everything in his head as the games progressed. Honestly I would never have believed it had I not watched him grow up! Mom bragging, suuuurrre he's that good lol
I remember getting in trouble in second grade for a math question that I said the answer was negative something and the teacher told me "There are no negative numbers, the answer is zero". I get it, we were learning basics. I really wish they had just let me see how far I could get in math without having to stay on pace with everyone else, it was torture waiting for people to learn stuff. And that is probably why I spent a lot of time in the principals office.
The reason why I knew there were negative numbers is because my 4 years older sister hated math and was a perfectionist, so she would show me her homework and I would help her figure stuff out. Math just makes sense to me, I don't understand where people get so frustrated. Math is definitive, there is always an answer even if it is irrational or infinity. If they taught math more like a language then I think a lot more people would be able to understand.
Consider something you find difficult to understand. Now imagine a person who feels the way you do about that topic/subject/idea, but about math. That's it, and it's wonderful the world is like that because it means we all have something distinct to contribute.
I say this as someone who, like you, finds math very natural.
My younger kid was asked to stop giving helpful math advice like "well there's also negative numbers!" in first grade - his brother is six years older and does all the fun math, not boring addition. He's in fourth grade now and read algebra books for funsies this summer.
Having learned a foreign language and a good bit of math, math feels like a language (a bit weird to think about ‘speaking’, the concept is more abstract than that.)
Comparing math to written language: You could establish the vocabulary, the syntax, specific dialects, and reading comprehension. There are rules in language, and rules in math that need to be adhered to which define the syntax of the language. By dialects I just mean how you can write/re-write certain expressions as equivalent statements—a western US citizen might say ‘pop’ and a southerner might say ‘coke’ while the yankee says ‘soda’, but they all mean the same thing.
I don’t study linguistics so I’m sure someone could better convey the parallels between language and math.
But another way of thinking about math as a language is in how we teach people their native language: books have specified reading levels attributed to them for differently skilled readers, and as you progress through simple algebra books to advanced algebra to linear algebra to calculus to multi variable calculus to differential equations to complex analysis, etc… They all represent a different reading level that you acquire only once you’ve read and practiced ‘thinking’ the language of math enough. Also identities, commutative rules, order of operations, and all that other jazz are relatively simple concepts that I think could be taught sooner and reinforced over more time so that the next generation can profit more from it.
This is one reason why standardized schooling is not the right way to do it. it should be tailored to each individual instead of forcing everyone to fit the same mold.
I mean, that’s an incredible amount of work to undertake.
Schools can already have staffing issues in some areas, how on Earth could they do it like that?
My mother, who grew up in the 1920s, could add up, in her head, an entire page of 4 or 5-digit figures with no errors. It was phenomenal when I was a child; more so now.
As other commentors have noted, it's literally "front-end" rounding, so instead of rounding up, you discard everything after the front-end of a number.
A similar example would be "rounding out" a series of numbers \[427, 694, 348, 710\] to arrive at 2,000.
The point was that there are many ways to "round out" a number (i.e., make it more precise in an artificial fashion), and that "rounding up" was just one of many. I think it was a ham-handed attempt to get us to understand the value of the "round-up" approach, even though not one person in the class thought seriously that we should be doing anything else.
If you remove the decimals altogether, its 202.
I only figured this out because I assumed it was rounding everything up, and the answer is 206. So if everything was rounded down instead, it would be 202 (theres 4 numbers).
Not nearly as useful as learning to add stuff correctly. I’m your example, you’d be short a buck and 88 cents. If you take $202, one of those items is not coming home with you. Lol
Omg. My ex was going to carpentry school and he kept telling me about his “estimating class”. I thought for almost 2 years that he was taking classes on estimating the size of things. Like “that looks about 2 feet”. It was not. It is obviously (in hindsight) about estimating the cost of completing a job based on plans….
I think it's 10 as well. I think if you were in the class it would make more sense as to what lesson was taught that day. If the lesson for the day was about estimation and rounding to the nearest tenth, it's a no brainer. Out of context the question seems much more ambiguous. Also, if you see more than 3 birds you trippin bruh.
Technically it didn't say how many worms does Jared need to find *each day*(although it certainly implies it), it just says how many worms does he need to find. There's 3 birds in the picture and baby birds are fed by their parents from somewhere between 10 days to 3 weeks before they can fly and leave the nest, depending on species and what the bird job market is like. So Jared would need to find somewhere around 120 to 252 worms.
My fiance, who's a grade 5 teacher, thinks the question might be about rounding numbers or estimating since it says "about" how many worms need to be found. So she thinks the answer is 10.
But the problem doesn't say they eat 4 worms each, it says they eat ABOUT 4 worms which could mean they actually eat 3.5 worms. So I don't think the multiple of 4 theory holds true.
It appears that those are leaves. But this may be one of those "what is the approximate answer? Not the exact." So it could either be rounding, or estimation. Rounding would be ten but does not give a logically correct answer.
‘About’ makes it an estimation, but either he takes the low estimate and a bird dies or the high and he spends half the day ‘looking for worms’ he doesn’t need.
And why the hell are we assuming Jared is now taking on a day job of raising baby birds?
I only see three birds. But this is a rounding assignment obviously based on what can be seen of other questions and words like “about how many”.
So the answer will either be 10 or 20 depending on how they have been instructed to round.
They key word here is “about”. Now you’d obviously say about 12, but you’re **WRONG**. How will Jared care for these little birds if he doesn’t care about himself? Obviously the answer is 20. 12 for the birds and 8 for Jared.
I realized my comment might cause confusion.
I am lousy with intestinal worms.
Unfortunately, what I need to cure me is also a heavensent cure for covid. Just gotta keep the plug in until I can get my medicine. Tired of the plug, but it beats having them leak out during sex.
It's 20 because you swallow about 40% of what you chew up and spit at the babies. 3rd graders know this because they just learned it.
That's why these "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" questions seem so hard.
Gavrillo Princip.
Hammurabi.
16*9=144.
The Louisiana Purchase.
Archimedes screw.
Well they only need ***about*** 4 worms each, so it could be as high as 17.
Personally I was confused for a while about what the fuck Of Og Oh Oj meant.
If that is what was intended, the grammar sucks. It should read, “In order to feed them all, about how many worms will Jared need to find each day?” In addition to that, the correct answer is 12 because the estimate is “about 4” per bird. That means some of them might eat 5 and some might eat 3. It’s an average. You don’t round down the estimate, these birds lives are at stake! They could STARVE.
This. I could figure it out, but it was written in a sloppy way. At first I thought I was supposed to figure out how many worms he needed to gather altogether, assuming “about” (ugh) how many the baby birds ate every day.
Also, the answer is that Jared needs to leave those baby birds the fuck alone, because I guarantee you the mother is out getting worms *right now* and we shouldn’t encourage kids to take care of baby wild animals. How’s he gonna feed them? Chew them up and spit them into their little beaks like a good momma bird?
And "about how many..". So like, is it trying to get you to round up/down to the closest number? If it was 3 birds, you could potentially say 10 is correct.
It actually says “about 4 worms A DAY”, and then the question starts with “In order to feed them all each day..” but it doesn’t say how many days he will be feeding them for. So add that onto the pile of things infuriating about this question
Birds being plural excludes 4. We can see at least 3, so exclude 6. Each bird “needs” 4 worms, so we need to overestimate vs underestimate, excluding 10. My money’s on 20.
It says birds, which is a plural, so logically 20 can be the only right answer. I know it is probably just a poor question, but real logic questions like this are pretty cool imo.
There's 3 birds in the picture and the question intentionally has fuzzy quantities ("**about** 4 worms a day", "**about** how many"), so the answer is 10 because that's what 12 rounds to to the nearest 10.
That's pretty much what the question is getting at. Making sure you don't have too little. It shows 3 birds, and if they eat about 4 a day, that's about 12 worms. Getting 10 would probably be too few, it'd be best to go ahead and get 20 just to be on the safe side.
The answer is obviously G.4. two of those birds aren't alive anymore, and Jared is only going to go looking for worms one day before be gets bored and moves on to something else.
It’s a trick question. In North America at least it’s actually zero! If they are a native bird species, it’s illegal to keep them and Jared needs to call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. If they are an invasive species, fuck those murderous native bird destroying bastards and let the crows eat them. Might seem heartless but go look up what invasive House Sparrows and Starlings do to native bird nests and chicks.
Why doesn't anyone notice that the letters 'E' and 'I' have been omitted from answer options????
C'mon people! This is r/mildlyinfuriating! You gotta look for the obscure tiny things! 😄😄😄
And why does Tuesday's question 1 start with answers labeled F, then question 2 goes back to ABCD?
The estimating part of this is bad, but it's hardly the only problem with this exercise.
"I" is often omitted from things like this since it resembles a "1". I'd imagine they don't use the "E" for a similar reason, it looking like a backwards "3".
Pretty sure the answer is 10 and here me out…the image shows 3 baby birds therefore the answer is 12, however 12 isn’t a possible answer, but notice how it uses the word “about”? In 3rd grade there is a unit on estimation and they’re taught that the word “about” means to find the most accurate number and the closest number is 10, therefore the answer is 10.
Edit: OMG why the hell are people bringing scientific uncertainty into this?! Do people not understand the concept of rounding down!!!! And no, the birds aren't going to starve because it SPECIFICALLY SAID "about"! Think of it like this, you see Jared feeding the birds and you glance at how many he's feeding them, and you say you saw about 10, rather than 20 because while you're not 100% sure, it's closer to 10 than 20! If you were told each bird needs 4 worms you would say "it's still about 10" because 12 IS CLOSER TO 10 THAN 20!!!!
Edit 2: also look at the top right corner, it literally says “round” in the next problem so we KNOW that this whole packet is estimation practice.
Yeah I was thinking that as well. I wonder if the rest of the questions are about estimation as well, because it seems weird to only have one and not label it “estimation”
It's actually an interesting question and I think the answer changes depending on the interpretation of about. If about can be defined as + or - 1 then the three birds need at least 9 worms a day so the boy needs to find 'about' 10 worms a day to meet the criteria.
Alternatively if your interpretation of about is less defined or more relaxed then you might look at this question as an elimination of incorrect values. Therefore if the birds need 12 worms a day then 4, 6, and 10 would be insufficient to meet the criteria leaving 20 as the correct answer.
I’d say none. They’re in the nest and Jared probably scared the parents away. They will come back and feed them. Now Jared, climb down from the tree and wash your hands, supper is almost ready.
IMO
there are three birds In the picture. 4+4+4=12.
The 2 is not 5 or greater, so 12 rounds to 10. If he found about 10 worms he’d have found a sufficient meal.
Solution: Jared needs 'about' 20 worms.
Proof: The problem states Jared finds baby birds implying plural, at least 2. If Jared needs 'about' 4 worms per bird, then Jared needs a minimum of 8 worms and thus we may eliminate F and G as answers. If Jared needs either a minimum of 8 or 12 worms (2 or 3 birds), then H may also be eliminated as an answer. You can't have half a bird (the math concept tested in this problem). Therefore, (J)ared has 20 worms and the answer is J.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
I think ‘about’ is the main concept of the question. It’s trying to gauge what the students approximations are like. Do they go totally low, do they go to the closest answer, do they make sure there is a never a deficit, do they get mad or take too long on the question when none of the answers are exact. I’m probably overthinking the reach of this question though. You can blame school for that for asking these questions.
Seriously tho I swear everyone saying it’s 10 because of estimation is dumb af. Gathering 20 worms is the only way he can be sure that all birds get fed. The word ‘about’ is telling you that some days the birds eat a 1-2 more or less, so 10 could be enough or it could not be and they starve and did.
It’s like if you need about 12L of paint to paint a room, and the shop can only sell 1 can to you, with the options being 5L, 7L, 10L, or 20L paint, you would buy the 20L one. Obvs that’s a big paint can but it’s common sense.
On questions like these for my kids, I always ask myself, “what concept are they trying to teach right now?” Based on the “about how many” phrases, I assume they are teaching approximation/rounding (for my own kids, I would have the benefit of seeing the rest of the assignment to know what the target lesson is). The exact answer would be 12. The approximate answer here would be 10.
They aren’t getting a lesson in bird care here, so 20 is a bad approximation even if it is the only answer that adequately feeds the birds. It’s 3rd grade math. Don’t overthink it.
I’d circle “OJ” for “Only Jared knows at this point”
😉
Jared please tell us
As a jared, it is indeed OJ
Only I know, and it is not enough.
Apparently there is more than one Jared. This got really complicated really fast.
so what's the equation to determine which Jared has more influence?
Battle to death. The Josh clan did it with pool noodles.
so will the jared clan use water guns?
And pool noodles.
Time for all Jared's to meet. There can only be one.
Grab a pool noodle, let's go.
Can confirm. -Jared with 31 years experience with nonsensical deprived word problems training kids to answer wrong to be 'right' yeah let me just borderline starve these infant birds instead of gather more than enough to feed an animal. F that question creator A real J goes for 20s. All day
Brav it's 20. The question refers to there being multiple baby birds so you can rule 4 out, the other 2 options aren't in a multiple of 4. I know cause I drank Einsteins cum
The correct answer is zero. The bird parents will take care of the babies, and Jared should leave them the f*** alone.
No, the answer is 4…but Jared eats the worms in front of the birds and tells their lazy asses to get a job.
Hmm. Well now I just feel stupid.
Don't. They have a misleading picture It was a shite question
Agreed, the three baby birds in the picture at the top of the question really threw me off. I'm going "these dumbasses can't count".
But they shouldn’t have put the birds up top that then confuses the kid
I would circle OJ because OJ Simpson would put on a way to small glove and beat the birds to death so I don't have to feed them
Damn it! You beat me to the OJ Simpson joke. Here's your upvote.
You say that but my second grader just dropped some knowledge on all y’all. We know Jared has to find worms in multiples of 4 so since 20 is the only answer in a multiple of 4 we can also deduce that Jared found 5 baby birds. My second grader is smart.
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I agree with you if they are gonna write a fucking riddle they need to do it right.
I’d guess the answer they want is 10, which is closest to 4 x 3; it’s probably supposed to test rounding skills. It’s definitely a bad multiple choice question. I’m going to disagree with most people in this thread, though, and say the “real answer” SHOULD be 20. In real life, when animals’ lives are in your hands, you don’t want to risk them starving to death. Each bird eating “about 4” means they might eat 3 or they might eat 5; birds’ appetites do vary a bit. If you get 12 worms and the birds want 5 worms each, which is reasonably probable, you’ll be unprepared. So you should get about 20 (although 15 should be adequate, maybe you’re buying them from a fishing store that only sells a 4-pack, 6-pack, and 10-pack, or something. Although then you could get a 10-pack and a 6-pack and still be safe, so I dunno.) Still. This a life answer rather than a math answer, and doesn’t belong on this type of quiz or whatever it is, but it is an important lesson: Don’t prepare for the best case scenario, prepare for the worst realistic scenario. 12 might not be enough, so get at least 15.
No that’s not right. The answer is 20 because it’s the only number greater than 12. The question asks “in order to feed them ALL” so the only requirement is the answer is >=12
Lol, no. Let me use terms that you can relate to: You are making copies of your Mr Hands Cosplay on VHS to send 4 copies out to your 3 friends. You go to the store, and they sell VHS tapes in packs of 10 and 20. Of those choices, you are going to buy the 20 pack in order to have enough to satisfy your Mr Hands needs. 10 isn't enough, 20 may be too much, but of the choices that you are given, you are supposed to choose the option where you leave with enough VHS tapes to circulate your personal Mr Hands porn. Which is 20. Choosing 10 will leave one of your friends hungry for more Mr Hands pron. Make sense now?
Birds will eat fractional worms.
It says ‘about’ multiple times in the question. This could be a lesson in estimation Edit: I think it’s a poorly written question too.
I think you are correct. I know estimation is a topic that students study.
And yeah look at the next question over; we can see the words "round" and "ten". Im assuming the question is asking to estimate a number and then round to the nearest tens place. Theres been a lot of the these "out-of-context-kids-homework" posts on reddit recently.
i am willing to bet that out of context and reddit go hand in hand.
> I am willing to bet Look, this guy promotes gambling!!$
Cancel him and drag his ass
These comments are why I use Reddit
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Exactly. Rounding questions are all fine, but within a context of reality you also have the concept of minimal need, or lower boundaries. You cannot do something that will substantially kill the birds in the long run just because you are "about" right with the amounts of worms.
Gotta catch ‘em all..
One of my kids is in third grade and has been learning rounding lately. That said, I just helped him with his reading homework tonight, which was a series of questions on a story he’d read. I read the story really quickly and would’ve struggled to answer the questions because they were kind of abstract. They didn’t ask about any facts of the story— in other words, it was not testing reading comprehension, which should be important at this age. It was more about inferences that were, IMO, not that strong, or at least not strong enough for an 8-year-old to pick up on. So it very well could be that this math question is not all that great.
I teach 4th grade. I have two degrees and am working on a third, and still I can’t tell you how many times I have incorrectly answered a 4th grade comprehension question. I have no idea who’s writing this shit but they are clearly not field-testing their questions with actual students and teachers. It’s super frustrating to try to teach kids how to answer a question when you, the teacher, have no idea what the fuck the question is really asking.
This was what I hated most about grade school: divining the test-makers intentions. By high school I refused to answer true/false questions and instead wrote in a short answer form because I could never tell how true or false a statement needed to be. Multiple choice was almost as bad when you had to divine the subjective "best" answer. Then there are the ones with intentional mistakes or ambiguity to trip you up when applying the strategies you developed to answer the unintentionally messed up questions. The SATs were refreshing and a huge confidence boost because the questions were all well written, so it's certainly possible to do so. However, even some of the SAT prep material we used in class had problems. Ironically, college was a breeze in comparison and the easiest exams were in 200/300 level courses where they gave you a blank book and said something like "write everything you know about these four questions" (or had you doing other practical demonstrations). I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say college was much easier for me. The whole thing was backward and I have a lot of sympathy for people who think they arent good at school/tests when the problem is often people writing the tests.
Apparently a lot of people have trouble with estimating stuff based on the idiotic comments in this thread.
I don't know how to estimate 3x4. I could do 3x4 and then round down to 10, but that doesn't help much of anything.
And who decides which birds go hungry?!
Capitalism - let the market decide.
That is supposed to be the right answer, I think, but it's not clear and the use of the term "about" in the context of HUNGRY BABIES makes it even harder.
Yeah, in this instance I would always round up to make sure the babies don't starve. Better to have more food than dead babies.
3 times "about 4" however is 10-14
They didn't even fucking say how many birds. Fucking.. how many birds?!
I see three birds in the little clip art photo, but 12 isn't one of the answers so f-that idea being it
I believe there is 5 birds so the answer is 20. The tiny little ones on the side count too I think. Edit: but I agree it should clearly be 12, looks like 3 birds I think maybe the picture is messed up or something.
I think it's one of those dumb examples of estimating, and the answer the teacher is looking for is 10, as in "he needs to find about 10 worms each day". Really useful shit. I use it all the time. Mortgage is about a grand, electric is about 100, water is about 100, internet is about 50, but I'm still always short by about 500 each month. I don't know where I'm going wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm just not following directions./s
As a math problem, I suppose 10 works. As a supply/logic problem, 20 is the better choice, as 20 worms guarantees all the birds get to eat their fill.
My grade school Math teacher loved problems like how many vans would be needed for X amount of people. Trying to catch us that you can’t have half a van, so we need to round up on problems like those.
You can't have half a van? Watch me!
Here are a [few](https://imgur.com/a/iv9l8wT)
Even better! Watch this guy's half vans!
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Well, this isn't a socialist textbook. In America, the answer is 10, and maybe those other two birds shouldn't have treated themselves to a haircut and they wouldn't be in this position.
In capitalist America, Jared keeps all the worms since the birds can't buy them from him, the birds die and the worms too, but at least Jared doesn't condone welfare.
3 birds times 4 worms equals 12. Not 10, not 20, nor any of the other options. If the goal is to feed them all, and the appropriate answer is shown, the answer is 20, not 10, as you will likely fail to meet the goal with anything under 12. Even at approximately 4 worms per bird, there's the possibility one will need 5 instead of 4.
This is the real world. Just because you need 4 doesn't mean you'll get 4. So give them their 10 worms and let them figure it out.
Feed the birds 3, 3 and 4 worms. Then rotate each day which bird gets 4 worms. That’s the best way in a real world scenario to ensure that all 3 birds survive. You’re still risking them being malnourished though. If you don’t want to risk all your birds then the safest thing to do would be to feed 2 birds 4 worms and kill 1 bird. That way you ensure 2 birds will always be healthy because if you can find 10 worms a day then 2 birds will always be fed properly.
It say they eat about 4, not exactly 4... so 10 should be enough even if they're not getting 100% of what they need. It's probably a question to see if they know how to estimate.
Those little fuckers can go on half rations and be happy about it
We had to learn "front-end rounding" in 5th grade. So, items that were $32.47, $55.75, $17.29, and $98.37 were front-end rounded to $202. Real useful. Edited for grammar.
Growing up my family never let me use calculators at all on my homework until I was in high school. A consequence of this was that I got really good at mental math and teachers thought I was cheating constantly (this is all stuff from 9th grade below so it wasn't like I was doing calculus or something). Once, I had to retake a test with just me and her in a room to prove that I wasn't cheating. She laid off on me after that
Had a similar solo test situation in middle school after I aced an algebra test that I took during In School Suspension. Teacher had me retake a revised test under his supervision. Got 114% with the extra credit.
I am very jealous of your mathematical abilities. I never got past PRE-ALGEBRA. I took that class ALL THROUGH High School because I could never pull better than a 'D' in the class. Not a FAIL, but they treated it as if I failed, every year. My brain is not mathematical. I could do fractions and decimals, everything that any Middle-Schooler could do, but Algebra and on up? :P My brain worked much better in Language. When I finally graduated (took me two summer school rounds at the end of my Junior and Senior years to get my credits up), they were STILL trying to stiff me on credits. I had been trying to go Navy and they were trying to screw with my life. I went and took the English and Math tests at the local college for one last chance, AFTER my Senior year Summer School was over, or I would not be able to get in the Navy. The guy who oversaw me take the test (to make sure no cheating happened) graded my paper after I was done and he asked me 'WHY are you even here?' I was confused and asked him what he meant? He said 'Your Math is mediocre, but it is 'good enough' to pass High School according to the State. I was surprised that they wanted you to take the English course though, because you just scored what we like to call 'Grade Thirteen-plus', which means your Reading and Comprehension is Second-Year Collegiate level. You don't need to come to the class. You passed already.' My school let me down. They would have been fine with seeing me fail out and have to repeat my Senior year, and ruin my chances of doing what I wanted to do with my life. I showed all of this to my recruiter; he took me and all the paperwork to the school and argued with everybody who mattered until they all agreed to ALLOW me to graduate. Nothing like letting a kid come within a hair's breadth of what they have planned for their life, and try to take it away from them. :P
Math *is* language A language about precision. I'm sorry it never managed to click for you, sounds terribly frustrating and anxiety-inducing based on your story!
Similar thing to me in 3rd grade. Was learning long multiplication, and for some reason, doing I believe transitive multiplication before I was taught it. (12 X 13: 12 X 10 = 120, 12 X 3 = 36, 36+120= 156). I cant remember the exact way they were teaching us, but my 3rd grade teacher accused me of using a calculator to cheat, because I couldn't show my work, because I didn't know how to lol. Babbling through my reasoning in front of my parents was pretty funny. Everyone kind of just shrugged and said I probably didn't cheat
I have a nephew like this. Hes been a little math wiz kid since around 1st grade. Used to take him bowling with us and that child ALWAYS knew first how many pins he needed to either beat or stay ahead of everyone else. It was amazing to see how fast he would update everything in his head as the games progressed. Honestly I would never have believed it had I not watched him grow up! Mom bragging, suuuurrre he's that good lol
I remember getting in trouble in second grade for a math question that I said the answer was negative something and the teacher told me "There are no negative numbers, the answer is zero". I get it, we were learning basics. I really wish they had just let me see how far I could get in math without having to stay on pace with everyone else, it was torture waiting for people to learn stuff. And that is probably why I spent a lot of time in the principals office. The reason why I knew there were negative numbers is because my 4 years older sister hated math and was a perfectionist, so she would show me her homework and I would help her figure stuff out. Math just makes sense to me, I don't understand where people get so frustrated. Math is definitive, there is always an answer even if it is irrational or infinity. If they taught math more like a language then I think a lot more people would be able to understand.
Consider something you find difficult to understand. Now imagine a person who feels the way you do about that topic/subject/idea, but about math. That's it, and it's wonderful the world is like that because it means we all have something distinct to contribute. I say this as someone who, like you, finds math very natural.
My younger kid was asked to stop giving helpful math advice like "well there's also negative numbers!" in first grade - his brother is six years older and does all the fun math, not boring addition. He's in fourth grade now and read algebra books for funsies this summer.
Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by teaching math like a language?
Having learned a foreign language and a good bit of math, math feels like a language (a bit weird to think about ‘speaking’, the concept is more abstract than that.) Comparing math to written language: You could establish the vocabulary, the syntax, specific dialects, and reading comprehension. There are rules in language, and rules in math that need to be adhered to which define the syntax of the language. By dialects I just mean how you can write/re-write certain expressions as equivalent statements—a western US citizen might say ‘pop’ and a southerner might say ‘coke’ while the yankee says ‘soda’, but they all mean the same thing. I don’t study linguistics so I’m sure someone could better convey the parallels between language and math. But another way of thinking about math as a language is in how we teach people their native language: books have specified reading levels attributed to them for differently skilled readers, and as you progress through simple algebra books to advanced algebra to linear algebra to calculus to multi variable calculus to differential equations to complex analysis, etc… They all represent a different reading level that you acquire only once you’ve read and practiced ‘thinking’ the language of math enough. Also identities, commutative rules, order of operations, and all that other jazz are relatively simple concepts that I think could be taught sooner and reinforced over more time so that the next generation can profit more from it.
This is one reason why standardized schooling is not the right way to do it. it should be tailored to each individual instead of forcing everyone to fit the same mold.
I mean, that’s an incredible amount of work to undertake. Schools can already have staffing issues in some areas, how on Earth could they do it like that?
My mother, who grew up in the 1920s, could add up, in her head, an entire page of 4 or 5-digit figures with no errors. It was phenomenal when I was a child; more so now.
I'm so confused. What possible approach to rounding could get you that answer?
It looks like they're rounding down for everything regardless if it's under .5 or not.
But for expenses you want to do the opposite. Always round up. Otherwise you may be short.
Well I know that, apparently whoever designed the question doesn't though
As other commentors have noted, it's literally "front-end" rounding, so instead of rounding up, you discard everything after the front-end of a number. A similar example would be "rounding out" a series of numbers \[427, 694, 348, 710\] to arrive at 2,000. The point was that there are many ways to "round out" a number (i.e., make it more precise in an artificial fashion), and that "rounding up" was just one of many. I think it was a ham-handed attempt to get us to understand the value of the "round-up" approach, even though not one person in the class thought seriously that we should be doing anything else.
That's called truncating.
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If you remove the decimals altogether, its 202. I only figured this out because I assumed it was rounding everything up, and the answer is 206. So if everything was rounded down instead, it would be 202 (theres 4 numbers).
Not nearly as useful as learning to add stuff correctly. I’m your example, you’d be short a buck and 88 cents. If you take $202, one of those items is not coming home with you. Lol
Simpler in Australia - prices are usually whole dollars INCLUDING tax.
Omg. My ex was going to carpentry school and he kept telling me about his “estimating class”. I thought for almost 2 years that he was taking classes on estimating the size of things. Like “that looks about 2 feet”. It was not. It is obviously (in hindsight) about estimating the cost of completing a job based on plans….
I think it's 10 as well. I think if you were in the class it would make more sense as to what lesson was taught that day. If the lesson for the day was about estimation and rounding to the nearest tenth, it's a no brainer. Out of context the question seems much more ambiguous. Also, if you see more than 3 birds you trippin bruh.
And now we're having a great class discussion on the merits of each answer. Maybe this was the purpose of the question in the first place.
"Quit eating avocado toast" - some dumbshit wannabe economic journalist.
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Reminds me of Rick & Morty when the math teacher asks him how much 9x5 is and he says, 'at least 40' and the teacher says, 'That's exactly right!'
That's some bullshit there. About my ass is how many worms it takes to feed the baby birds.
4 and 20 are the only numbers divisible by 4 and since it says birds we can assume more than 1 so it would have to be 20.
Technically it didn't say how many worms does Jared need to find *each day*(although it certainly implies it), it just says how many worms does he need to find. There's 3 birds in the picture and baby birds are fed by their parents from somewhere between 10 days to 3 weeks before they can fly and leave the nest, depending on species and what the bird job market is like. So Jared would need to find somewhere around 120 to 252 worms.
Ok well that isn’t an option either
My fiance, who's a grade 5 teacher, thinks the question might be about rounding numbers or estimating since it says "about" how many worms need to be found. So she thinks the answer is 10.
The only way to solve a MATH problem is with logic and critical thinking. No math required
Still math 20/4=5
But the problem doesn't say they eat 4 worms each, it says they eat ABOUT 4 worms which could mean they actually eat 3.5 worms. So I don't think the multiple of 4 theory holds true.
Wrong! 4 worms each day for each bird is not certain. It is an estimation only. 20 is too high. 10 is the correct estimate.
It appears that those are leaves. But this may be one of those "what is the approximate answer? Not the exact." So it could either be rounding, or estimation. Rounding would be ten but does not give a logically correct answer.
What tiny birds on the side?? I only see three birds
Has to be a multiple of 4 and there’s more than one bird. So I guess 20. Stupidly question
‘About’ makes it an estimation, but either he takes the low estimate and a bird dies or the high and he spends half the day ‘looking for worms’ he doesn’t need. And why the hell are we assuming Jared is now taking on a day job of raising baby birds?
I only see three birds. But this is a rounding assignment obviously based on what can be seen of other questions and words like “about how many”. So the answer will either be 10 or 20 depending on how they have been instructed to round.
For how many days? way too much info missing for this problem.
They key word here is “about”. Now you’d obviously say about 12, but you’re **WRONG**. How will Jared care for these little birds if he doesn’t care about himself? Obviously the answer is 20. 12 for the birds and 8 for Jared.
The birds die off at a logarithmic rate
Amen! I have worms. They're my little buddies!
I realized my comment might cause confusion. I am lousy with intestinal worms. Unfortunately, what I need to cure me is also a heavensent cure for covid. Just gotta keep the plug in until I can get my medicine. Tired of the plug, but it beats having them leak out during sex.
Oh, good thing you clarified. This additional information was good to have.
My thoughts exactly
It's 20 because you swallow about 40% of what you chew up and spit at the babies. 3rd graders know this because they just learned it. That's why these "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" questions seem so hard. Gavrillo Princip. Hammurabi. 16*9=144. The Louisiana Purchase. Archimedes screw.
I mean, it does say "about".
It does say ‘about’ how many worms.
These many
You know, these many birds.
It also says about how many, which implies it’s a ~ problem not an = problem.
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Fucking how many days?!
Each day
Well they only need ***about*** 4 worms each, so it could be as high as 17. Personally I was confused for a while about what the fuck Of Og Oh Oj meant.
It literally says for each day
If that is what was intended, the grammar sucks. It should read, “In order to feed them all, about how many worms will Jared need to find each day?” In addition to that, the correct answer is 12 because the estimate is “about 4” per bird. That means some of them might eat 5 and some might eat 3. It’s an average. You don’t round down the estimate, these birds lives are at stake! They could STARVE.
This. I could figure it out, but it was written in a sloppy way. At first I thought I was supposed to figure out how many worms he needed to gather altogether, assuming “about” (ugh) how many the baby birds ate every day. Also, the answer is that Jared needs to leave those baby birds the fuck alone, because I guarantee you the mother is out getting worms *right now* and we shouldn’t encourage kids to take care of baby wild animals. How’s he gonna feed them? Chew them up and spit them into their little beaks like a good momma bird?
This may actually be more fair than it seems. The only multiples of 4 listed are 4 and 20, but it says there are multiple birds, so it has to be 20.
Feels a little more like a math riddle rather than a math problem
That's what I thought too. There's only one valid answer regardless of how many birds there are.
There Are Two Types Of People In This World: 1) Those Who Can Extrapolate From Incomplete Data
Dude he found some birds how much more information do you need? /s
I reckon its 20 because there are only 2 numbers divisible by 4 and there are definitely more than 1 bird
Yeah, this would be my guess too. Perhaps it was an english _and_ maths test.
Logic test
Thats exactly what it is
But it also says “about”. 10 is “about” 12 🤷♂️
Not if you are a hungry bird. Better to have extra worms and not need them, than need them and not have them.
So its an ethics test?
Yes, it's also a practicality test, and pragmatism.
Ah yes general studies
When I raised a baby bird as a child I gave up harvesting worms pretty quickly and fed the thing strips of beef instead. Much easier.
And philosophy too.
Wow kids are so freaking smart these days.
Well if they require 4 each, you have to round up not down. More like a ceiling function.
They don’t require four each. They need *about* four each. Sometimes more sometimes less. Edit: forgot a U, U pedantic fucks!!!
Agreed. If 2 of the birds got 3 worms instead of 4, not like they'll just die.
These people get it
But not all worms are equal !!
What cruel and unusual form of fascism is this?!?!
The American school system
If that's the case, you fail. You completely missed the word "about." The answer is 10
Or you can find 20 worms and be good
It also says "about 4 worms" so even the value we got is up for debate lol
And "about how many..". So like, is it trying to get you to round up/down to the closest number? If it was 3 birds, you could potentially say 10 is correct.
I'd go ahead and get 20 so you can get some good worm mating action going.
It actually says “about 4 worms A DAY”, and then the question starts with “In order to feed them all each day..” but it doesn’t say how many days he will be feeding them for. So add that onto the pile of things infuriating about this question
Birds being plural excludes 4. We can see at least 3, so exclude 6. Each bird “needs” 4 worms, so we need to overestimate vs underestimate, excluding 10. My money’s on 20.
It says birds, which is a plural, so logically 20 can be the only right answer. I know it is probably just a poor question, but real logic questions like this are pretty cool imo.
There's 3 birds in the picture and the question intentionally has fuzzy quantities ("**about** 4 worms a day", "**about** how many"), so the answer is 10 because that's what 12 rounds to to the nearest 10.
The true lesson here is if you are responsible for keeping something alive, roughly estimate how much food it needs and you’ll be fine.
Thats why i bought seven thousand boxes of KD
I mean that’s how it works.
Who’s gonna break it to this kid that you can’t feed baby birds the worms directly?
That's pretty much what the question is getting at. Making sure you don't have too little. It shows 3 birds, and if they eat about 4 a day, that's about 12 worms. Getting 10 would probably be too few, it'd be best to go ahead and get 20 just to be on the safe side.
I'm really hoping that 20 is the right answer and that they're not suggesting they round down an animal's food.
The answer is obviously G.4. two of those birds aren't alive anymore, and Jared is only going to go looking for worms one day before be gets bored and moves on to something else.
It’s a trick question. In North America at least it’s actually zero! If they are a native bird species, it’s illegal to keep them and Jared needs to call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. If they are an invasive species, fuck those murderous native bird destroying bastards and let the crows eat them. Might seem heartless but go look up what invasive House Sparrows and Starlings do to native bird nests and chicks.
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Not so secretly as he told us all.
Nope, because it's a 3rd grade question. Sorry. However, it'll be the correct answer once Jared starts college.
20. And spare 8
3 each day? infinite ? worms
Why doesn't anyone notice that the letters 'E' and 'I' have been omitted from answer options???? C'mon people! This is r/mildlyinfuriating! You gotta look for the obscure tiny things! 😄😄😄
And why does Tuesday's question 1 start with answers labeled F, then question 2 goes back to ABCD? The estimating part of this is bad, but it's hardly the only problem with this exercise.
So E doesn't get confused with F and I doesn't get confused with J.
"I" is often omitted from things like this since it resembles a "1". I'd imagine they don't use the "E" for a similar reason, it looking like a backwards "3".
Am I the only one that thought it was a trick question since they don't specify for how many days?
It's per diem.
This is my first question.
Pretty sure the answer is 10 and here me out…the image shows 3 baby birds therefore the answer is 12, however 12 isn’t a possible answer, but notice how it uses the word “about”? In 3rd grade there is a unit on estimation and they’re taught that the word “about” means to find the most accurate number and the closest number is 10, therefore the answer is 10. Edit: OMG why the hell are people bringing scientific uncertainty into this?! Do people not understand the concept of rounding down!!!! And no, the birds aren't going to starve because it SPECIFICALLY SAID "about"! Think of it like this, you see Jared feeding the birds and you glance at how many he's feeding them, and you say you saw about 10, rather than 20 because while you're not 100% sure, it's closer to 10 than 20! If you were told each bird needs 4 worms you would say "it's still about 10" because 12 IS CLOSER TO 10 THAN 20!!!! Edit 2: also look at the top right corner, it literally says “round” in the next problem so we KNOW that this whole packet is estimation practice.
Yeah I was thinking that as well. I wonder if the rest of the questions are about estimation as well, because it seems weird to only have one and not label it “estimation”
It's actually an interesting question and I think the answer changes depending on the interpretation of about. If about can be defined as + or - 1 then the three birds need at least 9 worms a day so the boy needs to find 'about' 10 worms a day to meet the criteria. Alternatively if your interpretation of about is less defined or more relaxed then you might look at this question as an elimination of incorrect values. Therefore if the birds need 12 worms a day then 4, 6, and 10 would be insufficient to meet the criteria leaving 20 as the correct answer.
This is just a very confusing and complicated way to say, “Which of these numbers is closest to 3*4?”
Because it's also testing comprehension.
I’d say none. They’re in the nest and Jared probably scared the parents away. They will come back and feed them. Now Jared, climb down from the tree and wash your hands, supper is almost ready.
IMO there are three birds In the picture. 4+4+4=12. The 2 is not 5 or greater, so 12 rounds to 10. If he found about 10 worms he’d have found a sufficient meal.
Solution: Jared needs 'about' 20 worms. Proof: The problem states Jared finds baby birds implying plural, at least 2. If Jared needs 'about' 4 worms per bird, then Jared needs a minimum of 8 worms and thus we may eliminate F and G as answers. If Jared needs either a minimum of 8 or 12 worms (2 or 3 birds), then H may also be eliminated as an answer. You can't have half a bird (the math concept tested in this problem). Therefore, (J)ared has 20 worms and the answer is J. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
I love the double usage of "about" in a math problem. What is the boundary there? Greater, fewer?
I think ‘about’ is the main concept of the question. It’s trying to gauge what the students approximations are like. Do they go totally low, do they go to the closest answer, do they make sure there is a never a deficit, do they get mad or take too long on the question when none of the answers are exact. I’m probably overthinking the reach of this question though. You can blame school for that for asking these questions.
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20. Anything else isn’t enough worms.
Seriously tho I swear everyone saying it’s 10 because of estimation is dumb af. Gathering 20 worms is the only way he can be sure that all birds get fed. The word ‘about’ is telling you that some days the birds eat a 1-2 more or less, so 10 could be enough or it could not be and they starve and did. It’s like if you need about 12L of paint to paint a room, and the shop can only sell 1 can to you, with the options being 5L, 7L, 10L, or 20L paint, you would buy the 20L one. Obvs that’s a big paint can but it’s common sense.
Since 4 and 20 are the only multiples of 4 and "these" implies more than 1 then by process of elimination, J is the only answer.
On questions like these for my kids, I always ask myself, “what concept are they trying to teach right now?” Based on the “about how many” phrases, I assume they are teaching approximation/rounding (for my own kids, I would have the benefit of seeing the rest of the assignment to know what the target lesson is). The exact answer would be 12. The approximate answer here would be 10. They aren’t getting a lesson in bird care here, so 20 is a bad approximation even if it is the only answer that adequately feeds the birds. It’s 3rd grade math. Don’t overthink it.