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Sky News presenter Anna Botting has been “stumped” by another of her daughter’s maths homework questions.
Reaching out to her 32,000 Twitter followers, the Oxford-educated presenter asked for help with the latest head scratcher brought home by her 10-year-old son.
In response to Rishi Sunak’s promise to make math compulsory for all students up to the age of 18, adults have been sharing math tests for kids online and Ms Botting shared another one last week after the prime minister made the announcement.
The maths homework question Sky News’ Anna Botting needed help solving
Sky News presenter Anna Botting asked for help on Twitter with her 10-year-old daughter’s maths homework that left her ‘stumped’
So MailOnline asks, can you solve a 10 year old’s math homework?
The maths question clearly kept Sky News at 10 to the presenter, Ms Botting, all night as she pleaded for help on Twitter at 3:15am this morning.
“Stumped with another… (haven’t been taught algebra yet)… #mathshelp,” he tweeted.
What is the question?
There are 5 times as many pens in box A as in box B.
Tom moves 76 pens from box A to box B.
Both boxes now have the same number of pens.
How many pens are now in box A?
What does the internet say?
Not long after the post, Twitter user @jleuchtman posted that he thought the answer was 95. A few minutes later, he posted his second guess of 76.
Both of your answers were wrong.
One pilot, who appears on Twitter as “airplane driver plane talker,” didn’t even try to answer the question, writing, “I fly planes for work, and this hurts.”
Another Twitter user, Ivan Rai, posted that he thought the answer was 95. Also incorrect.
But television director Jonathan Glazier published a proof showing the correct answer: 114.
What is the answer and how is it solved?
One way to find out the answer is to convert the question into simultaneous algebra equations.
In the equations I use a be the initial number of pens in box A and b be on the initial number of pens on box B.
Since there are five times more pens in box A than in box B and when you take 76 pens out of box A and put them in box B they are equal, to obtain the two equations.
From here you add 76 to both sides of the equation on the right, so that both equations are equal awhich results in:
Since both equations are now equal athen you can merge the equations to:
What 5xb it’s really fair second + second + second + second + second can you take one off b From both sides:
If you then divide 152 by four you get the value of b:
Since the number of pens in both boxes is just b (the starting number in box B) plus 76, we can easily figure this out.
The answer is 114 pens in both boxes, but if you want to be extra sure, you can also exercise. aand therefore what is that number when you take out 76 pens.
- a = 5xb
- a = 5×38
- a = 190
- 190 – 76 = 14
‘Mrs H’ on Twitter came up with a clever alternative way to solve the problem
But if algebra isn’t your forte, Twitter user ‘Mrs H’ discovered a nifty way to model the problem using a graph.
She drew square A as five equal squares and square B as a square that has two squares from square A with 76 total pens transferred between them.
Therefore, boxes A and B have three equal squares that represent a number of pens.
Since two of the squares are 76 pens, he found that one square is worth:
Since both boxes now have three squares and she knows one is worth 38, she multiplied 38 by 3.
Therefore, boxes A and B now contain 114 pens each.
Rishi Sunak’s ‘great idea’ to make maths compulsory until the age of 18 was ridiculed last week as a ‘dead cat’ to distract from the NHS crisis and winter of discontent.
It comes after Mr Sunak’s ‘great idea’ to make maths compulsory until the age of 18 was mocked last week as a ‘dead cat’ to distract from the NHS crisis and winter of discontent.
In his first major speech as Prime Minister on 4 January, Mr Sunak promised to equip children for the ‘jobs of the future’ by tackling the UK’s high literacy rates.
Young people will be forced to take ‘some form’ of mathematics delivered through new courses or existing qualifications such as A-levels, T-levels and Core Maths. For most, driving is likely to involve practical skills rather than algebra.
But opposition parties dismissed the initiative as “empty” while conservatives urged Sunak to focus on tackling illegal immigration.
Nigel Farage said ‘quadratic equations’ would not help fix ‘broken Britain’.
Nigel Farage said ‘quadratic equations’ wouldn’t help fix ‘broken Britain’
Former Cabinet Minister John Redwood urged Sunak to focus on tackling illegal immigration and the Canal crisis.
Around eight million adults in England have the numeracy skills expected of primary school children, according to government figures.
Currently, only about half of 16-19 year olds study mathematics in any way. The problem is particularly acute for disadvantaged students, 60% of whom do not have basic math skills by age 16.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the prime minister “needs to show his work” as he “cannot deliver on this overheated, empty promise without more maths teachers.”
He added: “However, the government missed its target for new math teachers year after year, and existing teachers left en masse.”
A Labor source said: ‘In their desperation to ensure that Sunak’s speech does not follow Keir’s, No 10 have revealed that they have nothing to offer the country except…double math.
‘As the health service collapses after 12 years of Tory rule, criminals terrorize the streets and workers worry how their wages will last for the month, the country is entitled to ask: is this all?’
Former Cabinet Minister John Redwood tweeted: “While the Prime Minister focuses his attention on teaching mathematics, his election must not be forgotten as the most pressing priority was to stop illegal immigration.
‘Parliament urgently needs to legislate on small boats and public services.’
Mr Farage also chimed in and said: ‘So Rishi Sunak’s big idea to save the nation is math till 18! How will quadratic equations help solve Broken Britain?