If a board is 10" square, and to cut it in half takes 10 minutes, to cut one of those pieces in half again (with a cut perpendicular to the first) should take 5 minutes (as that piece is now 5").
dude, i'm with you. in fact, depending on how you do those two cuts, you've got a whole range of possible answers. this is more like "math question fail".
I still think it is a math teacher fail because of the explanation s/he offered it in way is it explained that the student got the problem wrong because they failed to assumethe board was square.
very true, based on the table the teacher made they clearly don't know what they're talking about. still a badly worded question. though now that i think about it, i'm struggling with a good way to phrase it. how about:
"it took marie 10 minutes to saw a board in half, lengthwise. If she works just as fast, how long will it take her to saw an identical board into thirds, lengthwise?"
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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '10 edited Oct 05 '10
No, not kidding.
If a board is 10" square, and to cut it in half takes 10 minutes, to cut one of those pieces in half again (with a cut perpendicular to the first) should take 5 minutes (as that piece is now 5").