Monday, April 29, 2013

Where have all the problems gone...

I reminded my faithful that, after posting numerous times for 2 months, I would crash and burn! But I hope some of you are following me at twitter.com/dmarain.

I have been tweeting many SAT practice problems under my trademark ®SATMATH 800++++.

For example, here's my latest...

What is the probability that a number chosen at random from the first ten positive odd integers is prime?
[45 seconds...]

Here's another not yet tweeted...

In how many ways can 36 be written as the sum of 2 primes, p and q, p ≤ q?

These are NOT of a high order of item difficulty. They are intended to provide practice for this category of arithmetic problems on SATs and other standardized tests, such as the upcoming PARCC assessments.

Just as importantly, as in ALL problems I compose, they are intended to be used as discussion points in class to review fundamental ideas and help students improve their READING COMPREHENSION of math words/phrases.

AS ANY MATH EDUCATOR WILL READILY ACKNOWLEDGE:

LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF KEY MATH TERMS AND LANGUAGE ISSUES IN GENERAL ARE MAJOR FACTORS IN STUDENTS NOT PERFORMING UP TO THEIR POTENTIAL.

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