I'm stumped, whats the missing number (1 Viewer)

[D. Scott MacDonald]

Bill, I agree totally. I love my daughters first grade teacher, but the curriculum is all screwed up. When my daughter was having trouble with math, I was a bit puzzled because I know she is very good at it. When I talked to the teacher, she said that my daughter approaches math too much from an algorithmic point of view and was thus getting confused by the fuzzy nature of their curriculum.

 

[Bill Griffith]

LOL

"Approaching Math from an algorithmic point of view" hmm sounds like the best way to approach it to me.

I just try not to get to involved with the states methods of teaching. I'll help when they have questions but I keep my opinion to myself and my wife. They, the kids, need to learn this stuff to make the grades and pass, best I not confuse the issue.

 

[TimDoss]

I have had many problems with my kids and the way the school teaches math... on a couple of occasions I have instructed them
on the way I learned it and know it and told them to do it
that way regardless of what the teacher tries to teach them,
if there's a problem with that I'll gladly meet with him/her. More often than not, they do better at their math
and the teacher ends up teaching them "my method" a week or
two later. I consider myself to be very good in math, but I
doubt I would be if I was taught the way our kids are now.

 

[Artur Meinild]

So I believe that something more consistent must be involved here.

Well, I know what you mean, but considering the "other" answer results in the number 4 being repeated indefinitely, I would say that my answer is as right as the other one...

 

[BrianW]

Excellent point, Artur.

 

[Artur Meinild]

Thanx!

 

[BrianTT]

approaches math too much from an algorithmic point of view and was thus getting confused by the fuzzy nature of their curriculum.

4th grade chaos theory? Your kid is sooooo smart! 4th grade is harder than I remember it.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I filled up 2 microsoft excel files, one C++ program, and spent several hours of vast web surfing and emailing. That female teacher took 8 hours from my life an I want them back.

jk

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Really. This teacher should be informed that some of the finest minds in the country spent time trying to figure this out, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what kind of compensation would work.

Wait, the teacher is a lady? How old?

Glenn

 

[Patrick Sun]

"It's always about a girl."

 

[Yee-Ming]

sheesh, all this reminds of a story a work colleague told me about his son's (equivalent) 1st grade English class and the comprehension test they had; can't remember the details now, but bearing in mind that "work" is a law firm, we all had differing opinions about the correctness of the answers that were deemed "correct" by the teacher -- my colleague's son had gotten 2 wrong, but I can't say that I agree with the teacher that the kid actually was wrong.

 

[Anders Englund]

This reminds me of the Tom Lehrer song "New Math". Anyone heard it?

--Anders

 

[andrew markworthy]

There is an answer to the sequence without invoking US currency and a correction, but it's tenuous.

The original sequence is:

1,5,10,15,25,50,?

The way you argue it is to say that there are two alternating sequences - i.e. 1,10,25 and 5,15,50.

The second sequence is increasing in size by 25 each time(1-15=10, 15-50 = 35). Thus, the next number in this sequence (though it's not asked for) is 110. [The reason is increases by 25 is that that's the number you get if you add the second pair of numbers in the sequence 1,5,10,15,25,50 together].

The first sequence (1,10,25) is increasing the gap between the numbers 6 at a time (1-10 = 9, 10-25 = 15). Thus, the next number in the sequence, and the answer to the problem, will be 46 (25+21=46). [And the reason you choose 6 is because that's what you get if you add the first two numbers in the sequence 1,5,10,15,25,50 together].

I can't believe I've just worked through this.

 

[Anders Englund]

Ok, here's another one:

4, 14, 1114, 3114, 132114

What's the next number?

--Anders

 

[MarkHastings]

Ummmm? andrew, you need help

 

[Keith Mickunas]

4, 14, 1114, 3114, 132114

Let's see, you start with
four 4
So you got
one four 14
Then you have
one one and one four 1114
Now you have
three ones and one four 3114
And now
one three, two ones, one four 132114
So...
1113122114

 

[RichGr]

Anders said

This reminds me of the Tom Lehrer song "New Math". Anyone heard it?

Oh yes: "It's so simple...that only a child can do it."

I had dinner in a restaurant recently, and the "entertainer" sang "I Hold Your Hand in Mine" as we were trying to eat!!

A friend of mine said that when he was at the Bronx High School of Science his math teacher had this sequence question for extra credit on a test:

191, 181, 168, 157, 145, 137, 125, 116, 110, 103, 96, 86, 79, 72, 66, 59, 50, 42, 34, 28, 23, 18, 14, ?

--Rich

 

[Jonny K]

I've spent too much of my life worrying about incorrect problems.


Jonny K.