My story in today’s paper: New state exam to get a test run.
It’s not online, but the story ran with a little math quiz showing sample questions from each of the four standardized tests Texas has had over the last two decades (the tongue-twister TABS, TEAMS, TAAS, and TAKS). The tests have gotten harder over time, and the increasing difficulty of the questions illustrates the point. The downside, unfortunately, is that all morning I’ve been taking calls from people who claim we got #4 wrong. (Trust me: we didn’t.) The question:
The student council sponsor is planning to make a circle graph showing the number of votes for each of the candidates for student council president. The table below indicates the name and vote count for each candidate.
Bridget – 240
Hakeem – 420
Maria – 180
Viera – 300
Tony – 60
What central angle should the sponsor use for the section representing the votes for the student who finished in third place?
A. 54 degrees
B. 72 degrees
C. 90 degrees
D. 126 degrees
Your answer? (No cheating by looking in today’s paper.)
12 thoughts on “taks math quiz, story link”
Comments are closed.
sum of all votes: 1200 ==> 0.3
Thanks to and extensive education in maths and science (Aerospace engineering is the perfect degree for a web developer, yes?), I know that:
240/1200 = X/360
A little common denominator action plus some easy division reveals x = 72.
um, blue?
I solved it the same way Jako did. 72 degrees.
Turnips.
Turnips.
Very good! I always knew crabwalk.com had the smartest readers of any weblog.
Most of the people who complain the answer’s not 72 degrees thought someone other than Bridget finished in third place. (Like “Nader,” for instance.)
72, baby. Thank God for cross-multiplication.
My biggest problem with the math questions on standardized tests was that I’d get confused simply reading and trying to understand the word problems. Yet, I always scored high on the verbal/reading portion of the test.
It’s an enigma.
No fair… I got 72, also… but now no one will believe me. They’ll think I cheated.
72, that was easy enough. Less easy was figuring out how much my roommates owe for rent, since those sharing a room pay less, and I haven’t taken a math class in two years.
Well…126 degrees is too hot, as is 90 degrees. And 54 degrees is too cold, so I’d have to say 72 degrees is just right!