Word problem
With word problem (sometimes also called factual problem or arithmetic history ) in mathematics lessons the specification of a mathematical problem through a longer continuous text description is called. The task always consists of the three parts question, calculation and answer. The difficulty for the students does not lie in the arithmetic processes themselves, but in recognizing which arithmetic operations lead to the solution and which text information is relevant and which is irrelevant.
The task is usually summarized in a final set of questions . In order to arrive at the solution, one has to divide the problem into individual steps and assign a corresponding calculation process to each of these steps. In this way, the student documents his logical thought processes at the same time.
A typical example would be: “A factory with five employees produces five hundred thousand tin cans in six days. How many people have to be recruited to produce 2 million tin cans in the same time? The machine capacities for this are available. "
Answer: Four times as many employees have to work, that is, 15 new employees have to be hired.
Unsolvable tasks
There are humorously alienated text problems circulating, the form of which is reminiscent of real, solvable tasks, but which lack the internal logical connection to a successful solution , such as B .:
- Let us assume that a cow eats mice, seven of them a mouthful. How much does she eat per day?
The punch line lies in the fact that the premise does not contain any information about the speed at which the exposed cow eats mice, but only about the capacity of her mouth. It is not uncommon that such arbitrarily induced breaks, which are supposed to serve as amusement (even if only because the test subject does not understand the joke), are also unconsciously brought about by serious taskers. Word problems that have not been checked for consistency first are notorious stumbling blocks in class. See also: Captain's Syndrome .
