MNetters love a maths question

[noblegiraffe]

Here's a lovely maths question I saw on twitter the other day.

For a Y8 class.

Bear that in mind while you're thinking WTF?

You need to open the photo to see the full instructions.

How boring a question! Not being able to measure just makes it a guesstimate sssurely

No, you can do it without measuring.

What sadistic fucker writes these stupid maths problems. How in the name of the Lord does this shite help anyone in their lives ?
Sorry 🙈🙈 I'm quite passionate in my hatred of maths.

whaaa? Off to consult my Y9

I think I know! Corner to corner to start yes?

I'm saying nothing! 🤐

Should we be drawing lines from the little rectangle to the edges to make triangles and other shapes that will tell us something?
This seems a bit hard for Y8 (and Mothers Day).

I would advise printing it out and doing some drawing!

Ooooh ooooohh. Puts hand up and waves madly!! I know!!

I'd be impressed with Y8s getting it though!

I have an idea, but not confident.

I've already done learning trig values and some basic vectors this morning, that's enough for me.

Tell us then Qantaqa - Id just go for down the middle, a bit off centre. But then I'm a near enough kind of girl most of the time.

Draw a rectangle and then start adding lines that divide it into two equal sized parts. What do you notice?

Confident now. Thanks for the puzzle @noblegiraffe

For reassurance of anyone reading this, the solution doesn't involve vectors or exact trig values, merely a pencil and straight edge!

Also, fancy meeting you here, @TeenDivided

The trig values is for a GCSE maths which for some ridiculous reason wants Foundation level students to know some off by heart.

I tell my foundation kids to guess 1/2 for any exact trig value question. Not worth the time spent getting them to try to remember all of them.

Ohh God now the pressure has me questioning ...

But in my head you need to draw some lines to work out the centre of the two rectangles.
You should then be able to draw a line between those two centre points across the whole diagram splitting it in half.

OK@noblegiraffe we surrender, we'll all let you post "This is how sh*t things are in schools" thread every single day, instead of these kind of nightmares!

That's my solution too, so we can both be wrong or right together.

I think through the centre of both rectangles should work (find the centre by crossing diagonals).

Not sure I'd expect Year 8s to prove that though, but maybe they could just by saying that the lines have to go through the centres?

And it’s crap like this that makes me glad I did not take Maths further than GCSE level (despite getting an A, and having a Maths Teacher as a mother)! What on earth is the point of learning this?

This is more about learning how to problem solve than anything.
A top set maths student should find this kind of thing fun.

That's my solution too. Find the centre point by drawing from top right corner to bottom left, then top left to bottom right - centre is where they intersect.