The end of the world cometh - 4 boney dudes on horseback spotted by Daily Mail readers...

[tabbypurr]

if you go to wilko :)

NT

[tabbypurr]

Its an easy question, I'm bemused by the complaint.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

The complaint was that in addition to actually regurgitating learnt by rote formulae for solving quadratics, it forced people to think. Since the modern education system discourages thinking, and doesn't teach it, the pupils felt cheated.

Which of course, they have been.

[ARW]

Armed only with a tape measure and a pencil could you work out and mark the centre of a 600x600 ceiling tile?

[Tim Lamb]

Yebbut, marking the centre from the diagonals only needs a pencil and a straight edge!

>

[Tim Watts]

Seriously - you should see the whining on twitter. A thousand GCSE candidates have been hard done by!

[Tim Watts]

Tape measure? A straight edge...

[Tim Watts]

Some tweets (without attribution):

I have taken ones from people who's profiles or other tweets suggest they are teenagers or actively doing GCSEs now.

Whilst the whinage is high overall, some tweets do give me hope. And some suggest where Adam's next apprentices might be coming from...

=========

She can f*ck right off #EdexcelMaths Their is a difference between challenging and impossible

"We won't be lowering the grade boundary because of bitchy year 11's" #EdexcelMaths

Omg I've just seen that Hannah's sweets question, I feel so sorry for the GCSE students it's ridiculous #EdexcelMaths

Even I can solve the qn. Kids shld stop complaining. It's not even difficult. #EdexcelMaths

Did anyone else get the answer right to Hannah and her sweets because I honestly don't think it was that hard...?? #EdexcelMaths

====

This one made me chuckle:

Jane eats one orange sweet, jane eats another orange sweet, calculate the mass of the sun #EdexcelMaths

Because (albeit at A-Level) when Dennis taught us about centripetal force and gravity, I did exactly that, based on knowledge of the distance of the sun from earth and how long a year is... It was cool :)

Compared to some of the kids in my class, I was pretty average.

[Tim Streater]

[Tim Watts]

Never sed I cud do inglish

[tim.....]

Only if you present me with the appropriate risk assessment for my standing on the chair and working with my hands above my head

tim

[tim.....]

That's a solution

not a proof

tim

[Tim Streater]

At the time I wrote that, I hadn't seen/heard the full question. All I heard was the equation part as reported on the Today prog.

[tim.....]

Neither had/have I.

but there's enough information in what you posted to tell you that working out in you head that:

n=10, will not get you full marks (or even close)

(unless maths exams have been really dummed down in the past 40 years since I took mine)

tim

[Farmer Giles]

Correct, it is not a proof - neither was my answer earlier.

This is, though: 6/n x 5/n-1 = 1/3

--> 30/n^2-n = 1/3

--> 90 = n^2-n --> 0 = n^2-n-90

[Tim Streater]

Indeed. But at the time of listening to Today, all I had was that it involved Hannah and some sweeties, and the equation. That's all.

[tim.....]

but it's still not a proof in the context of a maths question, which is

prove that n = 10 (from the information in the question, not from the equation)

tim

[Tim Streater]

He's using the information in the question:

6/n x 5/(n-1) = 1/3

This is the information in the question.

[Farmer Giles]

It didn't ask me to solve for n - but I have done. I formed the equation from the information in the question - thereby proving it. And, in my previous reply, I derived that n=10 from the equation.

[John Rumm]

There is no requirement to "prove" n=10 (and finding that n=10 would be finding a solution, not providing a proof)