Sunday, September 23, 2012

That sound you heard

...was NOT the earth stopping its rotation. 

Or hell freezing over. 

Yesterday I decided to sit down and do a math story problem just for fun.   You heard that right. 

(For the non-family member readers of this blog, please know I've been locked in mortal combat with arithmetic since elementary school.   A scholar of algebra, I ain't.) 

But at Geoana's orientation a few weeks ago the teacher had a problem on the board that intrigued me.  This weekend the child brought it home as a handout labeled "R-U-Up 4 The Challenge?" 

"Farmer Jensen has some geese and some goats.  Between them they have 86 legs and 60 eyes.  How many geese and how many goats does Farmer Jensen have?" 

Took me only a few minutes and some pencilwork to figure it out.  Mainly utilizing some Mr. Spock logic.  (Actually, the real Mr. Spock would have quickly figured out an algebraic equation for the solution.) 

However Geoana said she cannot get any outside help for this question and took a stab at figuring it out herself.  I figure we can compare answers tomorrow evening. 

And shoot, it wasn't that hard of a problem.  Nothing at all like this:


The Simpsons _ Aptitude Test Cheater by hulu

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