The question isn't "figure out how to get 3 pieces in 15 minutes if the first cut takes you 10 minutes", it's simply "how long does it take to make 3 pieces out of a single board". Tell me, if somebody gives you a 2 X 4 and asks you to saw it into 3 pieces, would you instinctively make 2 cuts in the same direction or would try to slice a section of 2 X 4 down the middle? What do you thing the vast majority of people would do? It's a simple problem. It's not meant to go beyond "this is how long a cut takes, how long does it take to make 2 cuts". The time it takes it make a cut is supposed to be a constant. If it were a variable, there would not be enough information to get a definitive answer. Don't try to make the solution so damned convoluted.
It depends on the shape of the board. Usually if left unspecified, by "board" we're referring to some rectangular shape. And if the manner of the cuts are left unspecified, I'd assume each cut is to be made in the same direction. Given that, it would take 10 minutes to cut the second board in half.
If you sawed a 10 foot long 2 X 4 in half and it took you 10 minutes. It would still take you another 10 minutes to saw one of those halves in half. Knowing you, you'd try to cut it length ways and it'd take you 2 hours.
This has probably been said before but if the wooden board was a square then 15 minutes would be the right answer. Let's say the square is 2 ft by 2 ft It would take 10 minutes to saw the square down the middle. You'd then be left with 2 rectangles that are 2 ft by 1 ft Suppose that it takes you 5 minutes to saw 1 feet of wood. Sawing the rectangle down the 1 feet length would only take 5 minutes.
The question implies that the cuts take the same length of time. Lets say I have a 3x3 square board. If I want 3 pieces, I need to make 2 cuts. Each cut will be vertical...so that by the end, I have 3 pieces of 1x3 wood. Simple? yes. Answer is 20 minutes.
As a teacher, this is embarrassing for our profession. Regardless of the context of the question, the methodology for creating it is terrible. I'm curious about the exact learning standard that she was trying to assess. Her justification of the answer isn't explicit enough, either. There are rules for writing questions, and she needs to be given a ticket to take her @$$ back to school.
wow this thread lmao. 1) everyone understands what the teacher was trying to ask. obviously they're working on fractions, what she wanted was to see if the kids could do this equation 2/10 = 3/x x=15 they probably covered simple single variables that the previous week, and the kid had to plug in the numbers to show he had mastered the concept. 2) everyone understands that the answer to the actual equation based on the wording of the question is 1/10=2/x 3) the problem is that the kid actually read the question, and understood that 1 cut yields 2 boards. so in fact he saw that he would only have to make 2 cuts and to get 3 boards. if the question had been worded: omitting "a board into" and "another board into" and then it would have been ambiguous and both answers could potentially be right. as worded you're talking about taking a single board and making 2 cuts to get 3 pieces from that board. there's no other correct answer period because how specifically it's worded. the teacher is a r****d. and it shows that independent thought and the inability to swallow patently incorrect thinking can actually be a detriment in this society.
<img src="http://imgur.com/qS70N.png" alt="" title="Hosted by imgur.com" /> Total time for 3 pieces: 10 minutes, 10 seconds. First cut is said cut - takes 10 minutes. Second cut just chops a corner off. [Booyah out-of-the-box thinking biiiitches! ] Hope everyone is dumber for my contribution to this thread! (I wonder if we could make this thread go viral...)
It's pretty clear you couldn't figure out the right answer at first, and now that it's been pointed out you're attempting to change the question to fit your incorrect answer. Would it seriously take you five minutes to cut a board into one piece of wood?
