Back to school.

[chookey]

I went back to school a few months ago. Doing a Maths course.
I left school and went straight into an apprenticeship and all of my qualifications are work related. Have basically had to start from scratch. I'm in a class with people who are a good way behind me, yet I do make mistakes due to my loss of concentration brought on by fatigue. So it's for the best.

I came across a question which ended up with me having a bit of a debate with my tutor. According to her answer book I got the question wrong. If I were to work the problem out her way I would get the same answer as her.
It's all in the wording. Nothing difficult if anyone wants to give it a try. Would love to see if anyone else gets the same answer as me.

6 months have passed so it's time again for chookey's bath. The flow of water from the tap is 8 litres per minute and it takes 24 minutes to fill the bath.
How long would it take me to fill the bath if the flow was increased to 12 litres per minute? The flow of water and time taken are inversely proportional.

 

[gazupnorth]

16 minutes ???


you smelly bugger !!!

 

[nara]

16 minutes ???


you smelly bugger !!!

Simple enough. I think the wording problem might be an age thing though. I did maths to a fairly high standard, but the way they teach it nowadays is a complete mystery to me. It seems completely nonsensical.

I prefer common sense. For example, that bit in the question "The flow of water and time taken are inversely proportional." Do they really need to point that out? Can they not assume that people have the gumption to work that out themselves?

 

[janobi]

So it takes 192L to fill the bath.

192/12 = 16 minutes

That's how I would work it out. I multiplied the 8L x24 to find out the capacity of the bath, then I simply divided the capacity of the bath by the new water flow of 12L, giving an answer of 16 minutes.

Maths has always been like that since I was in school, I left in 95. Reading the question was often the most important part of the test, I didn't do maths to a massively high standard, but im not bad at maths either.

 

[avid]

I work it out to 16 also. Bath capacity 192L after 24 minutes at 8L a minute.
192/12 = 16….

 

[Joe Noodles]

Get a shower

 

[nara]

I work it out to 16 also. Bath capacity 192L after 24 minutes at 8L a minute.
192/12 = 16….

I work it out to 16 also. Bath capacity 192L after 24 minutes at 8L a minute.
192/12 = 16….

Interesting. I wouldn't even have bothered with the bath capacity to work it out.

Input required here @chookey. I wonder if your 'wrong' way was the same as mine.

 

[avid]

Interesting. I wouldn't even have bothered with the bath capacity to work it out.

Input required here @chookey. I wonder if your 'wrong' way was the same as mine.

I also realise that the bath will fill a third quicker using 12 L a minute, so 24 minutes minus 1 third equals 16 minutes. But if I was writing my calculations down and an explanation I would of used the bath capacity method. I think that way seems clearer imho.

 

[chookey]

Interesting. I wouldn't even have bothered with the bath capacity to work it out.

Input required here @chookey. I wonder if your 'wrong' way was the same as mine.

I too did maths to a fairly high standard mate, after school, but reckon I got the same answer as you, 18. The guys answering 16 got the correct textbook answer though.
I told my tutor that this would be a question I would gladly get wrong.
Did yours look something like this?

 

[janobi]

Chookey, IDK how you got the above. It's very weird how maths can have different answers fo rhte same question. The amount of times I see BODMAS problems and people arguing over them is chicken oriental tbf

 

[Grimeire]

looking at yer maths the way i did it was totally different.

So 8/12 = 2/3 = 66.6666% so 66.6666% of 24 = 16 which is the result.

 

[miggy]

I would say @chookey is a scruffy coont. Did I pass.

 

[janobi]

I failed GCSE maths in school had a D, went to college and passed the resit. Sometimes it's about how you're taught rather than the subject matter.

 

[chookey]

Chookey, IDK how you got the above. It's very weird how maths can have different answers fo rhte same question. The amount of times I see BODMAS problems and people arguing over them is chicken oriental tbf

It was the mention of inverse proportion that made me do it that way.
I just doubled the flow to 16, which halves the time to 12 minutes. I then reasoned that 12 litres is midway between 8 and 16 so the time should be midway between 24 and 12 which is 18 minutes.
I only gave about 10 seconds of my time to the question and did it in my head.

I was hoping my tutor could explain why my method got a different answer. She couldn't even grasp my method and questioned where I got the 12 from? I explained to her that the 12 is one half of the question ffs I'm fully aware that I have terrible fatigue/concentration issues but I fail to see where my method isn't totally inversely proportional, yet giving a wrong answer.

 

[janobi]

It was the mention of inverse proportion that made me do it that way.
I just doubled the flow to 16, which halves the time to 12 minutes. I then reasoned that 12 litres is midway between 8 and 16 so the time should be midway between 24 and 12 which is 18 minutes.
I only gave about 10 seconds of my time to the question and did it in my head.

I was hoping my tutor could explain why my method got a different answer. She couldn't even grasp my method and questioned where I got the 12 from? I explained to her that the 12 is one half of the question ffs I'm fully aware that I have terrible fatigue/concentration issues but I fail to see where my method isn't totally inversely proportional, yet giving a wrong answer.

That's what they do with these questions, and it's intentional to confuse you. You basically need to pick out the parts you need to do the sum. The person who wrote that, probably thought they were being eloquently clever in adding that unnecessary additional sentence.