[Closed] Tricky maths

Only if they are drawn to scale.

Correction after 30 seconds' thought: Yes!

The article doesn't give a positive impression of economists, does it?

(The second one is hardly more complex than the first.

First is too simple for words, second requires an estimate or the drawing being to scale.

Edit unless that 2cm label is meant to be the vertical rather that horizontal line, in which case a doddle!

Second is perfectly doable, as long as you assume that the 2cm is labeling the one of the 3 sides that it's next to that you actually need to know (the short one to the left of the 2)

Err.. yes?

Both are 44cm

(agree the second one needs better labelling)

Assuming the 2cm shown in the 2nd drawing is the length of the vertical to the left of the note rather than the horizontal then they're both pretty simple to work out.

I must admit to not having read the question properly and trying to work out the areas which is really hard (ie impossible with that little info)

The article doesn't give a positive impression of economists, does it?

Only economists with Firsts. Those of us with Desmonds havent quite had the common sense taught out of us yet 🙂

It requires a smidge of lateral thinking but neither drawing is to scale and it actually doesn't matter assuming you jnow that rectiliniear means all the angles are 90deg.

Oh i have an a-level in maths but tbh its far far more logic than maths.

From the article:
"I even sent it to a friend who got a 1st class degree in economics and they were baffled by it as well."

i.e. they couldn't find the button in Excel to do it for them. 😀

It's one of these problems that they throw in every now and again to see if you can think rather than just add up.

Why does it need to be to scale? Piece of piss, and I'm a BA.

Just reading the article comments. Some are quite amusing.

"This looks a bit extreme, but there have to be one or two very difficult questions, and one or two very easy to cover the whole range."

"wrong its impossible to work out ,look at it logicaly..."

"Clearly one necessary measurement hasn't photocopied. It isn't baffling or worth writing to the paper about. I would have asked my child to approximate the measurement and complete the simple task based on the approximation or by actually measuring the missing section(I haven't done this, but it might be to scale). God, this paper!"

I particularly like the crash14235 guy spamming dozens of replies calling everyone an idiot because the second one is obviously 42cm 😀

Why does it need to be to scale? Piece of piss

As established a number of times above - it doesn't as long as you assume the 2cm label in the second is for the length you need (if you are vaguely used to reading drawings in BS 8888 it would be counter intuitive to assume it was so although not correctly dimensioned it is closer to dimensioning the horizontal than the vertical - although this would be irrelevant to the average 10 year old!)

I'm not sure why you lot are having to "assume" what the 2cm label refers to. The principle assumption has to be that the problems are soluble with the information available, which makes it obvious what it refers to.

Though I'm an engineer, not an economist, so it's to be expected that I'm capable of solving real world problems 😉

[CLANG] goes the "I'm an Engineer" bell

Because clearly it's better to be an economist?

which makes it obvious what it refers to.

Obvious possibly , but still an assumption. There was no need to allow any ambiguity by the writer of the question - just lazy diagrammatics.

if it was an ETSI EN specification, the measurements would be written without units and it would turn out that the 10 and 12 were using different units, neither of which would be explicitly defined...

I worked out the answers to the set of diagrams on the left, and then started at for 10 mins trying to work out how to use that info to slove the problem of working out the shapes on the right, when I realised that was where you write the answers...

so 10/10 for answering correctly, minus several thousands for overthinking it...

😳

So...

Economists fail to grasp very basic maths.
Papers then publish findings of economists without basic fact-checking.
Public spout idiotic comments based on half the story without thinking about it themselves.

Yep, that all sounds about right 😀

[quote=nickc ]I worked out the answers to the set of diagrams on the left, and then started at for 10 mins trying to work out how to use that info to slove the problem of working out the shapes on the right, when I realised that was where you write the answers...

I did wonder WTF the right hand rectangle had to do with things too 🙂

The measurement boundaries threw me for a bit, once I realised what the numbers applied to then it was easy.

slove the problem of working out the shapes on the right, when I realised that was where you write the answers...

At least one commenter took your confusion to the next level and used it to find the answer.. somehow...

AndreWatkins
Right I've had enough now, so I will explain in Manc terms. The left hand diagram is equal to the right hand diagram( hence the = sign to show this. All you need to work this question out is height plus height plus length plus length. Yes the second question is more of a mind boggle, but if you look at it its exactly the same as the first question and this shows by the exact same dimensions of the diagrams to the right. So even without working out the second question you already know both by working out the first.

AndreWatkins
The diagram on the right hand side after the = sign shows the true nature of the question. It is not simply just a random box to put the answer in. Can you people not understand this ? It's a perimeter and equation question combined into one

AndreWatkins
By the way , I hope all you A level and degree level guys didn't think the rectangle to the right of the paper was there to put your answer into. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if you did !

😯

Ok this was the kind of stuff my sons did for common entrance/scholarship papers so tricky for ten year olds - but for adults and A level mathematicians, come on!

The only tricky bit is to work out what the 2 refers to.

It has nowt to do with economics/engineering. It's just basic Maths logic/manipulation. Good question to see the bright ones at that age as you do need to apply what has been learnt by rote!!

Step 1 create an shape that you know how to deal with around the given shape ie a rectangle. For the first shape this is very easy. Draw in a dotted line to create the rectangle and it's soon obvious that it's the same thing. So an easy addition.

As usually Q2 draws on Q1

So repeat. This time a little tricker because you have the extra bits (2 cm). Just add them on to the calculation that is the same as above

KISS is always the way with the things. Draw dotted lines to create a shape that you recognise (here rectangles) and work gradually from there.

I will see if my sons (now Uni) can remember the techniques they knew at 11/12!!!!

Interesting to see IF the second box was part of the question or an answer box. The fact that the answer to both is the same is intriguing as could be read either way.

I assumed it was an answer box, so perhaps guilty it over-reading the question. Not that it mattered. Always good to check the working anyway!!!

For 10year olds, still would guess that it is the answer box.

Step 1 create an shape that you know how to deal with around the given shape ie a rectangle. For the first shape this is very easy. Draw in a dotted line to create the rectangle and it's soon obvious that it's the same thing

I pretty much just did it visually without much thought.

[img] [/img]

Dimensioned red side == sum of the undimensioned red sections
Dimensioned green side == sum of the undimensioned green sections
(apologies to the colour blind)

I'm not convinced it's anything to do with remembering techniques. The first one is blatantly obvious unless you struggle with the concept that splitting a line in half and moving one half sideways doesn't affect its length. The second one is slightly trickier (and not helped by the ambiguous labelling) but is basically the same problem as the first only adding 2cm twice.

Phew, we (mostly) passed the 10 years olds Maths test. Pats on the back all round!!! 😉

Just wondering why the in first question someone has dissected the shape; have they misread the question as "calculate the area" perhaps?

I've just spent a while feeling rather thick totally baffled as to how to do it, the realised the question asked for [b]perimeter[/b] not [b]area[/b].

I can do the perimeter easily enough, clearly I just can't read....

I too (at first) fell for the area/parameter mis-read.

[CLANG] goes the "I'm an Engineer" bell

Don't knock them, you might need one day to fix your boiler or drive a train.

Took me longer and it should as I over complicated the theory.

At least you solved it Drac - which is good for a glorified minibus driver 😉

I have you know I don't do that, I drive a B Max these days.

The robot from Big Hero 6?

Nice.

Haha!

The robot from Big Hero 6?

*applause*