Q&A - P3 Math

[CoffeeCat]

Yea i realised my faulty generalization. However i believe the kid was confused due to the whole number analogy.


And why will the marks be submitted to moe? What’s the error you found in their marking.

IMHO you shouldn’t stop solving primary maths questions just because its not easy to challenge marking (we all know how frustrating bureaucratic stuff are), because probably your son got his good genes in maths from you!.

[2ppaamm]

CoffeeCat:

Yea i realised my faulty generalization. However i believe the kid was confused due to the whole number analogy.


And why will the marks be submitted to moe? What's the error you found in their marking.

IMHO you shouldn't stop solving primary maths questions just because its not easy to challenge marking (we all know how frustrating bureaucratic stuff are), because probably your son got his good genes in maths from you!.

Sorry leh, it was you who said that? I thought it was a school teacher... you can see now that I don't like to engage school teachers in maths questions.

Actually I forgot the exact question already. It involves some model drawing but instead, my son used ratios to solve them in the exams.

He got the answers correct in 2 steps, but the 'model' answer involves I think 4 or 5 steps. The market could not understand so marked him wrong. Form teacher said correct, then ding dong, ding dong. Marks have to be submitted to MOE at the end of the year, right? All records are kept there I think. That's what the HOD told my son, because marks cannot be changed even though he agreed it was correct. However, when I saw the principal, he retracted this statement.

Never mind lah... my son learnt a painful lesson about teachers being not trustworthy as well. This HOD left his job the next academic year. :?

[CoffeeCat]

its cool your son think of fraction of ratio, but ratio is not the same as fraction, they are merely the equivalent ways to describe a relation. It’s just an issue of notation. Is this what drag in folks from NIE?

[CoffeeCat]

wah this is a very sad story. However your son could have been a maths genius! How did he even get to learn ratios in p3 or 4 already?

Did you send him for maths competitions?
Unless your son present in an unorthodox way otherwise the marker must be lousy.

[2ppaamm]

CoffeeCat:

its cool your son think of fraction of ratio, but ratio is not the same as fraction, they are merely the equivalent ways to describe a relation. It's just an issue of notation. Is this what drag in folks from NIE?

Don't know lah. Because I got 4 parties to prove the answer was right since they insist I was not an expert. I got the author of the textbook they are using, MOE maths specialist (They call her that), singaporemaths website person, and a HOD from a gifted Sec school. They all agreed.

This notation is just for argument sake. He did not use this 'logic' in this question. He merely drew a line across 2 ratios, separating them. In the end, when they could not find any error, they said a fraction involving 2 ratios cannot be used, but they should know this cannot be what he was doing. Another mistake he made was to cancel those numbers because he made a mistake in writing them, then wrote the right answers next to these canceled numbers. They said this was 'reducing'. Which again was not true.

Bottom line is, they just want him to be wrong. So be it lor.

What I taught my son: from then on, use a correction tape. Then they said no, so I told him to cancel everything and redo.

As to whether a fraction involving 2 ratios is correct or not, I think that really depends on the context as well. Also don't like to argue about such things lah... not important ma... That was his way or organizing his thoughts.

[2ppaamm]

CoffeeCat:

wah this is a very sad story. However your son could have been a maths genius! How did he even get to learn ratios in p3 or 4 already?

Did you send him for maths competitions?
Unless your son present in an unorthodox way otherwise the marker must be lousy.

CoffeeCat, my son has never attended a single tuition class nor has he ever attended any enrichment class. He does his maths by staring in the air. Not sure where he learnt ratio from though... maybe from books or from surfing? Just like my other son, who understands negative numbers at 7 years old, from don't know where.

But it's ok... the older boy has already moved on to something else. Now, I don't get involved in Pri Maths anymore, so I will not feel guilty for fighting for them and getting them into trouble again. Whatever the teacher say will be.

[jesschan]

I note that usually the teachers have a standard answer marking scheme, so if the answer provided by the child differs in working, rigid teachers consider them as wrong. I personally feel that it is not right to penalise kids for such "errors". On one hand, children are told to "think out of the box" but on the other hand, they are being penalise for doing so…

[CoffeeCat]

The education system was originally formulated as a factory assembly style system in order to produce workers who are obedient (and not questioning) and similarly skilled after the industrial revolution. I read somewhere that the idea of schooling is actually a relatively recent development. Even though MOE has tried to make changes, sadly whatever faults left lies with the original design of the system.

[chokos]

Need help on this P3 math question:


The cost of 7 erasers and 3 rulers is $5.05.
The cost of 2 erasers and 6 rulers is $3.95.
Find the cost of 2 erasers and 2 rulers.

Thank you.

[Dharma]

chokos:

Need help on this P3 math question:


The cost of 7 erasers and 3 rulers is $5.05.
The cost of 2 erasers and 6 rulers is $3.95.
Find the cost of 2 erasers and 2 rulers.

Thank you.

Add them up ....u get cost of 9 erasers and 9 rulers.