A year 4 maths question

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brodricj

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My girlfriend is a private English and maths tutor working in Shanghai. Yesterday one of her YEAR FOUR students had the following question to complete for homework which he needed help with.

"A red car started at point A, and a blue car started at point B. They traveled simultaneously towards each other. They first met 70km away from point B. After that, both cars continued traveling at their original speeds. The red car turned around and headed back towards point A upon reaching point B. The blue car turned around and headed back towards point B upon reaching point A. After a while, the two cars met again 40km from point A. What is the distance between points A and B?"

This is the level of maths being taught in China to nine year old kids. So here's the challenge. Work out the answer. And if you have a kid in junior school, let them have a crack at solving it and let me know the outcome.
 
brodricj said:
My girlfriend is a private English and maths tutor working in Shanghai. Yesterday one of her YEAR FOUR students had the following question to complete for homework which he needed help with.

"A red car started at point A, and a blue car started at point B. They traveled simultaneously towards each other. They first met 70km away from point B. After that, both cars continued traveling at their original speeds. The red car turned around and headed back towards point A upon reaching point B. The blue car turned around and headed back towards point B upon reaching point A. After a while, the two cars met again 40km from point A. What is the distance between points A and B?"

This is the level of maths being taught in China to nine year old kids. So here's the challenge. Work out the answer. And if you have a kid in junior school, let them have a crack at solving it and let me know the outcome.
Click to expand...

And your point is?
 
The point is, if nine year olds in China are performing at this level in maths, and I assume in STEM subjects generally....compared to what I know the education standards are where I live, which I assume mirror the western world generally, China is going to overtake the rest of the world in all aspects of science and technology (and by default militarily) within the next 10-15 years.
 
Seems some information may be missing. Simultaneously must not mean same speed. I don't see how they could meet at two different points. Unless one stopped for lunch, LOL I'll have to think about this one.

Come back later with the answer. During high school and after I took some higher math but you know what they say, if you don't use it.....
 
Well yeah, Mike gets the cigar. I've seen the ChatGP algebra method to answer the question, but kids aren't allowed to use AI to do their homework. And nine year olds don't learn algebra in school. My 19 year old can't answer the question.
 
brodricj said:
Well yeah, Mike gets the cigar. I've seen the ChatGP algebra method to answer the question, but kids aren't allowed to use AI to do their homework. And nine year olds don't learn algebra in school. My 19 year old can't answer the question.
Click to expand...

Have your girlfriend teach your 19 year old son math.
 
mep said:
Bummer. I guess Catholic schools aren't what they used to be when I grew up.
Click to expand...
When I went to a catholic boys school in the late 70's early 80's we were whipped by the teacher at the front of the class with a leather strap if we hadn't done our homework. And there were a few sadistic teachers who had hacksaw blades inserted in their leather strap to stiffen them up.
 
Impressive Mike.

I asked Chat GPT the question and it failed to come up with an answer. Then I told it the answer was 170kM and it provided the proof showing that is the correct answer.

Not sure how I feel about that.
 
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