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[quote=Anonymous]I swear I'm living an episode of "are you smarter than a fifth grader" here.

dd's math homework has this problem:

Jose buys two pencils for 11 cents each. Mary buys six pencils and gets two pencils for 11 cents. How much more did Mary pay for her pencils than Jose?

The answer, of course, is 11 cents. But I really had to think about it for a couple of seconds. And after I walked DD through why she got the answer wrong, I realized, you're basically answering three equations here and have to be sure you're answering the right question, which is -- what's the delta between Jose's outlay and Mary's outlay? So, I asked DD "how much did Jose spend total?" and she had to think about it. Then I asked "how much did Mary spend?" And, she got that wrong b/c she was tripped up by the "two pencils for 11 cents" aspect. Then it became "what's the difference between what Mary spent and what Jose spent?"

Now, I'm old now and I don't really remember 3rd grade, but this seems like rather sophisticated math. What am I in for in the coming grades? Is it time for me to go back to remedial math too? The good news is, this stuff is kind of fun.

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