Ok so it’s more like the 2009 PSLE Maths made my baby brother mad at me. Yup, I think I accidentally crushed my brother’s ego when I pass him the question posted on the Yahoo! News. It was an even bigger blow when he realised our cousin who took the paper managed to do the sum but with unfortunate careless mistakes. To be clear, my baby brother is 13, in sec 1, completely gifted in a measurable sense and not just because his sister said so and believes he is smarter than his younger cousin.
Well it’s not his fault, most adults including my 49 year old father cannot do the following sum.
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But the parents MediaCorp spoke to said students were apparently so stumped that many — even top students who have regularly aced past school examinations — broke down in tears in right after the paper.
Private maths tutor Josephine Tan whose son studies at Anglo—Chinese School (Junior), said he told her that “many A* students in the top class… couldn’t finish all the questions”.
According to posts on an online forum for parents, one example of the problem sums given was: “Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?”
-an excerpt from the full article
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Ah the days when Maths was about sweets, chocolates & toys. Damn it, I miss PSLE math. It made me feel smart & special. It still does. As the story goes, I did well in lower secondary maths too! That’s until graphs, trigonometry, differentiation & etc were introduced (& when arithmetic was not the main course anymore) that everything pretty much went downhill from there.
I remember the joys of coming up with reasoning that no one expected me to- i would later learn in sec 2 it was called simultaneous equations. I loved explaining it to the people around so that they could understand that the answer was pretty much right under their nose. I was so inspired that up till sec 4- that’s even when i started sucking at maths- I wanted to be a Maths Teacher. I remember how i would present my working as big ‘side working’. I remember I hated writing the word units over & over again. But man did i love the satisfaction of writing down the final statement.
Ok wait, so exactly how many sweets did Ken buy? (the following would be how I -limiting myself with P6 knowledge of math-attempted to do the qns in 2.5min.)
After.
Jim (J) Sweets : Choco Ken (K) Sweets : Choco
1 : 7 1 : 4
.
.
Half of choco = Amt. Jim has after = Amt Ken has After + Amt. eaten
Half of choco = 7 (J) units = 4 (K) units + 18
.
.
Half of sweets = Amt Ken has after = Amt Jim has after + Amt eaten
Half of sweets = 1 (K) unit = 1 (J) unit + 12
.
.
1 (K) unit = 1 (J) unit + 12
. X 4
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4 (K) units = 4 (J) units + 48
_____________________
.
.
7 (J) units = [ 4 (J) units + 48 ] + 18
7 (J) units =4 (J) units + 66
3 (J) units = 66
1 (J) unit = 22
.
.
Half of the sweets
= 1 (J) + 12
= 22 + 12
= 34
.
.
Amt of sweets Ken had before
= 34 X 2
= 68
.
.
Ken bought 68 sweets.
The above working is dedicated to all Singaporean parents who cannot do the sum & have a hard time explaining to their children- i.e. my father.