Mike F.

asked • 05/12/16

Which number, when added to 456, makes a problem that makes no regrouping? 544 222 325 344

My answer is 222.  Am I right?

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Kenneth S. answered • 05/12/16

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Hassan H.

Mike and Kenneth,
 
The only way I can make sense of "regrouping" is as "carrying a digit," which means that Mike indeed has the correct answer.  But hey, I am just guessing...
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05/12/16

Kenneth S.

Thanks, gents, for the insight. They've certainly managed to make a mountain out of a molehill, in this reform business. It's just absurd to have to reform something as basic as arithmetic, and introduce the artifice of "makes a problem that makes no regrouping." 
 
Tonight I was tutoring a kid in Algebra 1 and he had a problem on a (New Age) worksheet that referred to a robot that was to move from a given point "at a rate of ½ ft/second, northeast, along a line..."  Well, the line turned out to have slope 4/3, so that is NOT Northeast (it's northeast-ish).  The task was to determine the coordinates of the position to which it would arrive in 60 seconds.  MOST ANNOYING, because you can't truly go northeast and also follow a line that has slope 4/3...if you go northeast, you move with slope 1.  The rush to publish, for profit, material to foist on students and teachers is producing an awful lot of poorly written questions in math. 
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05/13/16

Hassan H.

It's a lot of work to carry that extra digit all the way to the top of the mountainous molehole, so I guess you have to regroup after doing so... maybe take a break to roll some "number cubes," as dice are now known.
 
But Kenneth, I hope you aren't suggesting with your comment that lines of orientations other than 1 aren't allowed to move to the Northeast... I think the Northeast should be accepting of as diverse a spectrum of lines as possible, including those of irrational and even transcendental orientations, under the protection of their First Quadrant rights. ;)
 
On a less facetious note, I agree that some of the newer material is unnecessarily convoluted, and I too have seen it lead to a lot of frustration.  My own tactic is to try to point out to the student the humor in poorly worded or confusing questions whenever appropriate, so that he (or she) doesn't turn away from the subjects in exasperation, although, on the long view, this is of course a waste of energy.
 
 
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05/13/16

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