It’s the maths question that’s divided the internet, does 5+5+5=15? Some teachers don’t think so.
Parents are venting their outrage over a maths exam that was posted online, which reveals how teachers are marking primary students down even for correct answers.
The exam, posted to social media site Reddit, shows how an American teacher marked two questions as incorrect, despite the Year 3 student finding the solution to the problem.
The above two questions were marked wrong because children are taught to read multiplication questions as the first number, grouped in the amount of the second number. For example, 5x3 would be five groups of three
The reason for the deduction has to do with the petty fact of exactly how the student found the answer.
The exam asked the student to solve multiplication problems using repeated addition, by writing the same number again and again to find the answer.
The first question asks for the answer to 5x3, and the student answers 5+5+5=15. But the teacher marks the answer incorrect, and instead writes that the answer should have been 3+3+3+3+3=15.
The second question is marked incorrect in much the same way. In the second question, students are asked draw an array to solve 4x6. The student draws six rows of four and is again marked wrong, with the teacher drawing four rows of six as the correct answer.
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ShareThese questions were marked wrong because the children had been taught to read a question like 4x6 as four groups of six – not six groups of four. However, when it comes to single multiplication problems, it doesn't matter which way the problem is read.
Since the picture was posted on Reddit, many have been using the exam as a means to criticise marking standards.
Stacey Jacobson-Francis, 41, of Berkeley, California, said her daughter's homework requires her to know four different ways to add.
'That is way too much to ask of a first grader,' she said. 'She can't remember them all, and I don't know them all, so we just do the best that we can.'
'Part of what we are trying to teach children is to become problem solvers and thinkers,' said Diane Briars, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, in the US. 'We want students to understand what they're doing, not just get the right answer.'
Last year, comedian Louis CK complained about the bizarre questions on his daughter's homework.
Comedian Louis CK complained last year about his daughter's math homework
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