Lan's family cooks 15kg of rice every meal.

Problem "Lan's family cooks 15kg of rice for each meal"

Recently, some parents shared a picture of a math problem for elementary school students to do multiplication. However, it would not be worth mentioning if the data of the problem gave a slightly... unusual number.

Specifically, the problem has the following question: "Lan's family cooks 15kg of rice for each meal. In 1 week, how many kilograms of rice does Lan's family cook, knowing that Lan's family cooks rice twice a day?"

The math problem "Lan's family cooks 15kg of rice for each meal" surprised parents. Photo: CMH

The details of each meal cooking up to 15kg of rice surprised and shocked the parents and then brought up the topic of "dissecting" happily like "Oh my god, my family only eats 10kg of rice in a month, Lan"; "Each meal is too much pressure for Lan's family. I love Lan"; "Please tell me where everyone lives so I can invite them to buy rice. I guarantee wholesale prices"; "It's so tiring for the paternal or maternal grandmother to send rice to Lan's family"...

Some people even jokingly recognized that "Lan" was the character in the problem "Cycling 200km to school every day" so they cooked a lot to eat on the way.

According to research, the original version of this problem is "Lan's family cooks 3/7kg of rice for each meal". It is possible that in the process of finding homework to assign to students, parents or teachers changed the data to suit the current curriculum, leading to this interesting data.

Similar problems are shared online. Photo: CMH

This is not the first time a math problem has attracted attention. Previously, parents could not help but laugh at the problem "Lan's house is 200km from school, it takes Lan 10 hours to cycle from home to school, what is Lan's cycling speed?".

Although it is a simple problem about calculating speed, the problem is unrealistic because how can Lan ride a bicycle 200 km in 10 hours?

An unrealistic math problem for students. Photo: CMH

Or another elementary math problem that also uses simple multiplication but has caused heated debate in the online community. When reading the problem carefully, many people are confused about the way questions are given to students today.

Specifically, the question is given as follows: Currently, Nam is 4 years old, his father's age is 4 times Nam's age. His mother's age is 3 times Nam's age. Question: How old is Nam's father? How old is Nam's mother?

The answer is Nam's father is 16 years old and Nam's mother is 12 years old.

The issue of "child marriage" is shared on social networks. Photo: CMH

Makes mathematical sense but no practical sense

Regarding the above problems, Master of Mathematics Pham Phuc Thinh, currently a Math teacher in Ho Chi Minh City, said: "This problem is normal, there is no mistake in the calculation and there is no mistake in the content. Everyone is assuming that Lan's family cooks 15kg per meal for a small family. But in reality, maybe Lan's family is a company with many workers so they cook 15kg or Lan's family cooks for charity. Lan's family does not eat all this rice, but there are many purposes for cooking it."

However, Master Thinh also said: "I often joke about practical but unrealistic problems. That is, the person who proposed the problem started from the mathematical content and let reality insert real-life data into it. Sometimes this makes people laugh.

In addition to the problem of Lan cycling 200km to school or calculating Nam's father's age as 16 and Nam's mother as 12, there is also the problem of preparing to buy a house, An's family has saved 1 million VND per month. But no one deposits 1 million VND in the bank to buy a house because even in a hundred years, An's family still cannot buy a house with the current increase in house prices.

However, Master Thinh affirmed: "Don't worry too much because the problem does not cause any harm to students. It's just that after finishing and reviewing it, students and parents will definitely laugh because the content is not true in real life."

Source: https://danviet.vn/bai-toan-tieu-hoc-khien-phu-huynh-hot-hoang-moi-bua-gia-dinh-lan-nau-het-15kg-gao-20240927041227349.htm