• ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    it’s

    a badly

    written

    math

    problem

    Seriously, every time this comes up and everyone makes a huge deal out of it, I keep thinking, “none of the people writing these better be teachers.” You have to be more clear than this.

    Edit: ok, not so much this one. I just read the words and assumed the math problem was one of the ambiguous ones. Stand down, soldiers.

    • BetterDev@programming.dev
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      2 hours ago

      no

      it’s

      fucking

      not

      This is just basic algebra, this is actually how the problems in algebra I are written. What the fuck?

      • Quatlicopatlix@feddit.org
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        27 minutes ago

        Yea that is true but a lot of these questions use the division sign when they should just use a fraction and everything would have been easy to understand. If i see the devision sign and there are more than 2 elements like x=a÷b+5 i cry because if they just used x=a/(b+5) or x=a/b +5 it is just visible no ambiguity. (a/b as in a over b, idk how to do fractions on the phone if you know tell me!)

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        You’re right. I honestly just assumed it was one of those intentionally engagement-baiting posts when I saw it and didn’t even process the problem itself.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Nope, you’re right. I just read the words and assumed it was one of the terrible ones.

        This one is just…math.

    • VoterFrog@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      I think it’s reasonable if you consider the kind of physical situation it might represent.

      You visit a farm and there are 2 unpackaged apples. There are also 5 packages that hold 8 apples but 5 have been removed from each. How many apples are there?

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        In fairness, this one isn’t nearly as bad as most of the ambiguous problems that get passed around on Facebook with multiple parentheticals and such.

        Your word problem is excellent.