5 ms·

Growing up in the US, we used to have questions like this on math exams. The correct answer is something to the effect of "Not enough information to solve this

Growing up in the US, we used to have questions like this on math exams. The correct answer is something to the effect of "Not enough information to solve this problem". Of course we had practice questions where that was the case before the exam, so it wasn't a surprise or anything... but it was standard practice.

Harvey-Specter 9y ago
Questions like "A ball is fired from a cannon at a 45 degree angle, how far from it's initial position does it land?" are also fairly common in Canada. I don't recall every being asked something this silly though. There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here.
- vixen99 9y ago
  Without the "it's", I trust.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Read the article - there are several clues, and bounds can be calculated.
  - Harvey-Specter 9y ago
    I read the article. The question is stated to be > "If a ship had 26 sheep and 10 goats onboard, how old is the ship's captain?" What 'clue' did I miss? The only other information is some speculation from a Weibo commenter who thinks that 26 sheep + 10 goats = 7700kgs. I supposed you could argue that these 5th grade students should know the minimum age required to have a commercial boat licence, but I couldn't tell you that answer for my country (and we don't know that this is a commercial ship, could just be someone taking his livestock for a jaunt around the lake).
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Scroll past the ads. There's lots more.
      - Harvey-Specter 9y ago
        No, there isn't. Please quote what other information is provided.
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        The other information, is the reasonable assumption that there is a minimum age limit for getting a license, and an apprenticeship for larger vessels. As mentioned. Even if you don't know the numbers, you can sketch out that thought process for an answer. Not all algebra is done with constants. In fact my sister ran the data systems for a large trucking company. Her interview questions included "how many ping pong balls will fit in a semi-truck trailer?" She was looking for any kind of process to arrive at an answer. Most folks just flailed around, helpless because the question didn't include the answer in it (like so many test questions in school).
        mcphage 9y ago
        There still isn't an answer to the problem.
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        Sure - in the form of bounds (older than...younger than). This is all about students being taught by rote, with right answers all neat and pat and solvable. Folks educated like that have a problem with questions like this one. Folks who can 'think outside the box' have no issue at all with uncertainty in the answer. Similarly, folks posting here who can or cannot see that this question is interesting and solvable (do a degree). No, not by 'an answer' but by a variety of approaches.
        9y ago
- jerf 9y ago
  "There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here." The lack of relevant relationship is the missing piece. Given how much nonsense I've personally witnessed as a math tutor or TA as students shove unrelated numbers through unrelated equations in unmotivated manners in an attempt to come up with some answer, any answer, I'd say it's not any worse a question than giving them one that does correspond to an equation but has too few terms nailed down for a concrete answer. The weird part of this story to me is that it is somehow newsworthy. Is it truly such an oddity in China that this made it to international news, or is there a heavy dollop of our local media basically turning off their critical thinking when it comes to China or Japan and boggling at anything, no matter how mundane?
  - aje403 9y ago
    Discovery of Jesus on french toast in mexico ignites local flames of monotheistic debate has caught the attention of the nation, and potentially, the entire planet
bcaa7f3a8bbc 9y ago
I certainly sure that they've read something about this in the U.S, and they thought it would be a good idea to try the same thing. I'll bet it was a direct copy from the U.S.
- brador 9y ago
  The problem is sometimes mistakes happen in exam questions, from simple typos to impossible questions, etc. How is the student to know that this was a genuine question vs. a mistake?
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    How can it matter? If its unanswerable, its unanswerable for everyone.
    - mbfg 9y ago
      that is the correct answer
mannykannot 9y ago
Then there are the questions that, at first sight, do not seem to have all the information, yet they do. Consider the one that opens this article: http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/NapkinRingVersusSphericalCap.html?ColinsBlog http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/NapkinRingVersusSphericalCap.h...
- bbctol 9y ago
  What's interesting about that problem is that (for me, at least) knowing that that is enough information to solve it makes solving it a lot easier. If I was just told to make as much headway as I could, I'd get stuck on some tricky geometry, but once you're told that the answer is a single number, not in terms of any variables, the method of solution became clear.
- js8 9y ago
  > Then there are the questions that, at first sight, do not seem to have all the information, yet they do. I love the following problem, in a similar vein: There are two chosen natural numbers x and y, both between 1 and 100. Two smart people, Alice and Bob, are told this fact, and Alice is secretly told x*y, and Bob is secretly told x+y, and they are also told who knows what. Then the following conversation happens: Alice: I don't know the two numbers. Bob: I knew you wouldn't know them. Alice: Now I do know the two numbers. Bob: And now I do know them as well. The question is, what are the two numbers?
  - t0mbstone 9y ago
    4 and 13
  - lalaland1125 9y ago
    Before anyone else gets lost trying to solve this, the parent posted the puzzle incorrectly. The correct limits on the numbers are that: - Each of them is greater than 1, but their sum is less than 100
    - bllguo 9y ago

Harvey-Specter 9y ago

Questions like "A ball is fired from a cannon at a 45 degree angle, how far from it's initial position does it land?" are also fairly common in Canada. I don't recall every being asked something this silly though. There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here.

vixen99 9y ago
Without the "it's", I trust.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Read the article - there are several clues, and bounds can be calculated.
- Harvey-Specter 9y ago
  I read the article. The question is stated to be > "If a ship had 26 sheep and 10 goats onboard, how old is the ship's captain?" What 'clue' did I miss? The only other information is some speculation from a Weibo commenter who thinks that 26 sheep + 10 goats = 7700kgs. I supposed you could argue that these 5th grade students should know the minimum age required to have a commercial boat licence, but I couldn't tell you that answer for my country (and we don't know that this is a commercial ship, could just be someone taking his livestock for a jaunt around the lake).
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Scroll past the ads. There's lots more.
    - Harvey-Specter 9y ago
      No, there isn't. Please quote what other information is provided.
      - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        The other information, is the reasonable assumption that there is a minimum age limit for getting a license, and an apprenticeship for larger vessels. As mentioned. Even if you don't know the numbers, you can sketch out that thought process for an answer. Not all algebra is done with constants. In fact my sister ran the data systems for a large trucking company. Her interview questions included "how many ping pong balls will fit in a semi-truck trailer?" She was looking for any kind of process to arrive at an answer. Most folks just flailed around, helpless because the question didn't include the answer in it (like so many test questions in school).
        mcphage 9y ago
        There still isn't an answer to the problem.
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        Sure - in the form of bounds (older than...younger than). This is all about students being taught by rote, with right answers all neat and pat and solvable. Folks educated like that have a problem with questions like this one. Folks who can 'think outside the box' have no issue at all with uncertainty in the answer. Similarly, folks posting here who can or cannot see that this question is interesting and solvable (do a degree). No, not by 'an answer' but by a variety of approaches.
        9y ago
jerf 9y ago
"There's no formula to calculate the age of a ship captain based on his cargo. There's no 'missing piece' here." The lack of relevant relationship is the missing piece. Given how much nonsense I've personally witnessed as a math tutor or TA as students shove unrelated numbers through unrelated equations in unmotivated manners in an attempt to come up with some answer, any answer, I'd say it's not any worse a question than giving them one that does correspond to an equation but has too few terms nailed down for a concrete answer. The weird part of this story to me is that it is somehow newsworthy. Is it truly such an oddity in China that this made it to international news, or is there a heavy dollop of our local media basically turning off their critical thinking when it comes to China or Japan and boggling at anything, no matter how mundane?
- aje403 9y ago
  Discovery of Jesus on french toast in mexico ignites local flames of monotheistic debate has caught the attention of the nation, and potentially, the entire planet

bcaa7f3a8bbc 9y ago

I certainly sure that they've read something about this in the U.S, and they thought it would be a good idea to try the same thing. I'll bet it was a direct copy from the U.S.

brador 9y ago
The problem is sometimes mistakes happen in exam questions, from simple typos to impossible questions, etc. How is the student to know that this was a genuine question vs. a mistake?
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  How can it matter? If its unanswerable, its unanswerable for everyone.
  - mbfg 9y ago
    that is the correct answer

mannykannot 9y ago

Then there are the questions that, at first sight, do not seem to have all the information, yet they do. Consider the one that opens this article: http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/NapkinRingVersusSphericalCap.html?ColinsBlog http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/NapkinRingVersusSphericalCap.h...

bbctol 9y ago
What's interesting about that problem is that (for me, at least) knowing that that is enough information to solve it makes solving it a lot easier. If I was just told to make as much headway as I could, I'd get stuck on some tricky geometry, but once you're told that the answer is a single number, not in terms of any variables, the method of solution became clear.
js8 9y ago
> Then there are the questions that, at first sight, do not seem to have all the information, yet they do. I love the following problem, in a similar vein: There are two chosen natural numbers x and y, both between 1 and 100. Two smart people, Alice and Bob, are told this fact, and Alice is secretly told x*y, and Bob is secretly told x+y, and they are also told who knows what. Then the following conversation happens: Alice: I don't know the two numbers. Bob: I knew you wouldn't know them. Alice: Now I do know the two numbers. Bob: And now I do know them as well. The question is, what are the two numbers?
- t0mbstone 9y ago
  4 and 13
- lalaland1125 9y ago
  Before anyone else gets lost trying to solve this, the parent posted the puzzle incorrectly. The correct limits on the numbers are that: - Each of them is greater than 1, but their sum is less than 100
  - bllguo 9y ago