Sorry you may have wasted a lot of time on that response. The sample I gave was somewhat contrived from the test as I was writing the e-mail from memory and did not have the exact question in front of me. I got the point across but the question might have not been correctly written.
Howard Ressel Project Design Engineer, Region 4 (585) 272-3372 >>> Bill Hooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/13/07 12:36 PM >>> On 2007 Mar 13 , at 11:43 AM, STANLEY DOORE wrote: > The test example ... > They should have questions using the SI in science applications. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Ressel" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> For example, Sally walked 200 m Bill walked 2 km, how far did >> they walk together. Metric aside, I have another point to quibble with on that question about the two people and their walk together. What does the word "together" mean in this case? If that means the two people were walking side-by-side, perhaps holding hands, then the distance they "walked together" must be only 200 m. At the end of that 200 m, Sally stopped (since the problem says she only walked 200 m) while Bill must have continued walking WITHOUT HER, since he walked 2000 m. The only walked "together" for 200 m. (Or do Sally and Bill each have 900 m long arms, allowing them to still be holding hands after Bill has walked 1800 m further than Sally?!) Apparently the author of the question wanted the students to add 200 m and 2 km (converted to 2000 m) to get 2200 m (or do it all in kiiometres and get 2.2 km). But what physical reality is there to adding together the separate distance of two separate walks? (If the question further stipulated that Sally and Bill were walking toward each other along a straight line, then the question "How far apart were they if met after Sally walked 200 m and Bill walked 2 km?" would be a reasonable question to ask. But "walked together"? It's ambiguous at least (what does it mean?), and impossible at worst (they have arms 900 m long). We do our students no service trying to teach them metric by using questions that are unambiguous or describe illogical situations Bill Hooper 1810 mm tall Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
