Fake - Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old

I remember that question very very well...the contestant gave the wrong answer, the child gave the wrong answer...as far as I remember the rest of the class gave the wrong answer (although some may have been correct, I could be wrong on that part.) The answer of zero was given and accepted. Would the person who gave the answer of 5 have lost all their money I wonder?

Actually the order of operations, at least as far as brackets are concerned, is now taught in primary schools as part of the National Curriculum ......(as can be seen here) although I suspect the question setter hadn't a first clue about it & just thought as many do, that multiplying anything by zero gives the answer zero.:rolleyes:
 
It is now part of the national curriculum for 9 and 10 year olRAB to learn about people of the 20th century, and John Lennon is one of the people they study, so is to be expected that a 10 year old would know the year he died. I have been a Beatles fan for many years and so far have helped two children of frienRAB with their projects on John Lennon. Even if children are not learning about famous people at school, I see no reason why they would not know facts such as this. My own son, who is now 22, surprised his teacher at the age of 7, by telling her the year of John Lennon's death and also facts about the other members of the Beatles such as their birthdays. If a parent talks to their children about the culture of their youth and other interesting facts, then a child will pick up facts that they find interesting. I remember my mother talking to me about things that happened when she was young in the 1930's and 40's and I learnt a lot from that. I think also that some people just remember things such as dates. I can remember all sorts of dates of important things that happened in the 60's and 70's, I don't remember later dates so well though. Some of the dates I remember are really mundane, but I suppose I just pick up these things. Everybody is good at different things. I don't have much patience with people who say they don't know a thing because they weren't born then, I bet if you ask them when the battle of Hastings was they will know it is 1066. Then there are the people who say they don't know where a place is because they haven't been there, but I bet if you asked them where the Taj Mahal is, they would know it was in India, even though they may never have been there. As to them choosing bright children to be on Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old, then it is obvious that they would do that. It wouldn't be much of a show, if all the kiRAB on it stood there with open mouths and saying they didn't know the answer to all the questions.
 
"Using the rule, the answer to the question above is, of course, 5 because you multiply before you add . "

I would have got that wrong and said the answer is zero.
I should have boned up on my secret workbooks before visiting this forum.
 
Haha..not sure I can give you the proper answer, but I'll give it a go....

Firstly of course, it is just not sensible to have two correct answers to a mathematical problem,* so there has to be a rule of convention which everyone uses.

Basically, multiplication is just a shorthand (lazy) way to express repeated addition, so you are just adding the same number together several times.
If written out in full then 5 plus 3 'lots of' zero would then be 5+0+0+0, which of course equals 5.

A couple of examples using slightly different numbers, if a fish costs 5p & chips cost 2p, then some-one ordering a fish & 3 portions of chips can be represented as
5+3x2.
If just worked out from left to right, you would be charged 5p + 3p and then it would be multiplied by 2, which would be 16p when in reality you should just be paying 6p for your chips plus 5p which is 11p.

Obviously the problem could be slightly different, for example, if apples and oranges both cost 2p each and you bought 5 apples and 3 oranges, you could also write it as 5+3x2, but in this case you would need to total first and then multiply by 2 so you need to show the need to find the total first by using brackets, (5+3)x2 to give the correct answer, which this time will be 16.

I'll stop now before I tie myself up in knots, but hope this helps a little. :)

(* yes, I know about roots but there's always an exception. ;))
 
These comments are pretty accurate I think. I remember reading a post by a mum on another forum some time ago. Her child had been a participant on the programme and she confirmed that he had been given a whole bunch of questions before hand to revise. He was academically bright and also went to a performing arts school.
 
The title of this programme has always bothered me a bit. I suppose they mean Are you More Intelligent than a Ten-Year-Old? when they really mean Are you More Knowledgeable than a Ten-Year-Old? I would have thought that the meaning of intelligence is nearer to
 
But surely it's far more sensible to do operations in the order they come? And always use brackets, when brackets are sensible?

Because in you fish and chips example, 5+3 x 2 is just short hand for (5 x 2) + (3 x 2).
 
I think Sparkles gave a great explanation.

As Sparkles says it is important to have a rule that always works. A rule that said "Do the operations in the order they come" would not work in expression such as 5 + 2squared. You have to do the squaring before you do the adding, unless there are brackets and it means (5+2)squared.

In your rule you would have an arithmetic in which 5 + 3x2 was not equal to 3x2 + 5, which would change nature of the addition operation, since it is at present always true that for all values of a and b, a + b = b + a.
 
Ah, but it isn't. :)
It's actually shorthand for (5 x 1) + (3 x 2). Your version still gives the answer 16 to that example, when in reality it should be 11.

They key really is that multiplication is shorthand for repeated addition (just as division is shorthand for repeated subtraction). The shorthand has to be unravelled first. Once this is done, the answer will be the same whatever the order, which is the point of the whole rule. Once one fish (5p) and 3 chips (@ 2p each is written in full, ie: 5+2+2+2, the answer will then always be the same regardless of the order, which is of the course the ultimate aim.

So then 5+2+2+2 is the same as 2+5+2+2 or 2+2+5+2 or 2+2+2+5


Basically the rule is saying...if brackets have been put in to put the numbers in specific groups, then sort out the brackets first, as intended. After that, if any shorthand has been used, powers, multiplication & division, unravel all of that. Once you have done that, feel free to work in any order...start from either end...start from the middle..stand on your head, whatever, the answer will then always be the same.;)
 
Fully agree - it would be more real if they got the answers wrong occasionally (well I've never seen it happen), and their "me me me"/silly walk-on bits...... so vomit-inducing.
 
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