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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

[b]Half a pot is by definition not a complete pot[/b]. I am teaching my children to be careful and exact in their use of language precisely to avoid such misunderstandings. Precision of language, please! At 6th grade I would definitely encourage DD to discuss her reasoning with the teacher to (1) try to recover the point and (2) determine whether the teacher intended to word the question in this way so that DD could tailor her understanding of the expectations in this teacher's class such that she would not miss future problems by over-analyzing the language of the question. [/quote]

Yes, but it is possible to complete the glazing of half of a pot.[/quote]

You haven't completed anything if a pot is sitting there half un-glazed. That would be like my kid claiming to have completed the cleaning of half of the toilet or taking out half the trash in the bin. Utterly nonsensical and meaningless. This is a ridiculous argument and a poorly worded question.

I get the mathematical concept it's trying to demonstrate, but if I had this question on an exam, now or when I was in school, I would automatically think it was a question designed to test not only my mathematical calculations but also my reasoning skills. Thus, while my work would show the answer of 4.5 I would write down 4 as a final answer because no other answer makes sense given the wording. We had several of these types of questions throughout my years as a student, and we were always expected to realize when it did or did not make sense to have an answer that is a fraction. That's part of basic number sense. In this case, I firmly dispute the idea that 4.5 is a reasonable answer given the exact phrasing of the question. Again, I would encourage DD to seek clarification with her teacher. Maybe the teacher will say to always give the exact answer and disregard practicalities, maybe that was part of the instructions for this assignment and DD missed that, or maybe the teacher didn't intend to write an ambiguously worded question but agrees that DD's reasoning makes sense.[/quote]

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