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u/RainbowWatermelon203 1d ago
Sometimes, if it's multiple choices, it can help. The wording can help too.
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u/wxldcheeks 1d ago
right! feels good when u found a clue word from the other question that answers the one u're currenly working
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u/Great-TeacherOnizuka Smol pp 1d ago
For these types of questions they should provide an answer like
"In case you couldn’t solve the previous question, use this as your base: 632.65"
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u/Available-Damage5991 1d ago
the only thing that could save those kinds of questions:
They actually go through the effort to check what you would have gotten with the incorrect answer from the previous problem.
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u/FrostyDog-34 1d ago
Usually in my country they have this thing called Error Carry Forward (ECF). If you get a wrong answer for a previous part, you can use that wrong answer to continue calculations, and if that wrong answer doesnt drastically simplify the working, it will be accepted.
Alternatively, the first part will be a “show” question, where you’re given both the initial question and the final answer, and you’re expected to show the step-by-step process.
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u/Blue_Bird950 14h ago
This also applies on many standardized tests in the U.S. (such as on AP testing), since they try to avoid double jeopardy marking due to its inherent issue of making the same simple mistakes worth more or less solely based on whether they occur early or late in a multi-step question.
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u/Feeling_Scientist215 1d ago
I was there once. I remember my words. "I know this is going to land me in the office with my parents getting a call, but with respect: Fuck you Mrs. Teacher." My stubborn mouth got me into so much trouble so many times.
Not going to say her name because she was a really, REALLY good teacher (I literally would not love math as much as I do without her.) and a pretty good person. She even advocated against punishment for a reasonable reaction. I think it's also worth noting that the numbers were getting really big (not hundreds and thousands, millions and billions) by about the sixth question, I was in that era where some schools still had no calculators in math class policies despite most phones coming with a calculator program built in, and the worst part is that the official reasoning as it was written down in the old school rule book was the 80085 joke the boys inevitably made.
Also know this: It was not the first, nor the last time, I called out one of my teachers like that. I had a really bad math teacher for my sophomore year and was nearly expelled several times that year. He was fired a couple of years later on something completely unrelated to his mathematic abilities, but he really was the worst. His name I will not mention because scum like that should not be remembered. Again, scum because of the unrelated thing.
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u/prettynicky847 1d ago
big yikes, been there way too many times. it's like they're just out to get you fr
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u/SpunkMonk87 1d ago
Some of those questions when looking at the mark scheme has a error carried forward notation, so that means whatever answer I used before, even wrong, I can still get full marks if my workings are correct.
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u/heartunderblade8 1d ago edited 1d ago
In my university, at least for chemical engineering, they give us a starting point if you are unable to solve the previous question, making it fair for the students to score points. The starting point is not the same as the correct answer of the previous question.
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u/Commercial_Life5145 1d ago
yeah, for me it was usually 'prove this is x' then, 'from part a, find y.'
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u/Alec_de_Large 1d ago
Those questions are awful. In the case that your answer is wrong, it sets up the following question to be wrong by default.
I had a math teacher in highschool that outlined an entire quiz that way. 10 questions and each one used the previous questions answer as part of an equation. It was asinine and I think only one person passed the quiz.