How much did John pay for lentils

[Dobybert]

I'm waiting to hear back from my tutor, for the meantime I would like to hear, how much is it for the canned lentils?

If it's not 87 p per can and it's not 12.42857 p per can than it's not possible to answer the question because it doesn't tell you what the 87 p is for. If the course is a 'basic functional maths skills' course to help people budget and understand everyday life then they need to write the questions unambiguously.

Remember further education is 16+, this might include key mathematical skills for people who for whatever reason do not have GCSE Maths. Are you thinking about higher education (university etc)?

I would assume it is 7x87p because that makes more sense. Hope you pass the test and get onto the course.

Have you tried writing 609p rather than the amount in £s?

No, you have to go through the whole assessment and it'll tell you at the end if it's incorrect, when you know the price of the lentils you have to then round it to the nearest £1 to fill in the table next to it

Ah, if you need to round it to the nearest £1 (why??) then it's £6. That would explain what the answer above posted by @Garlicwest is doing.

Did you write £6 in the lentil box? And does it mark each part of the question, or just the lentil part?

Is this a joke

Seven cans of lentils? My god his guts will get a good working over!

https://studyx.ai/homework/101931980-before-checking-out-john-does-some-mental-maths-he-rounds-the-prices-of-his-groceries-to

This is the closest online version of this question I can find.

However, it's still ambiguous as it doesn't say whether he rounds the total price of each line to add it up, or if he rounds the price per can/kilo and then adds it up.

The first way is mathematically correct and anyone who disagrees shouldn't be teaching maths at any level IMHO.

All my thoughts too!

According to the assessment it's still wrong, I'm going to address it with my tutor, I am quite literally stuck before I can even start because of this

John should have gone to Tesco. They're only 47p per can so he could have bought 12.96 cans for £6.07.

However, it's still ambiguous as it doesn't say whether he rounds the total price of each line to add it up, or if he rounds the price per can/kilo and then adds it up.
The first way is mathematically correct and anyone who disagrees shouldn't be teaching maths at any level IMHO.

Yes, surely it's a basic principle in maths that if you're going to do any 'rounding', you do it at the end, to the final answer, not half-way through. Poorly worded and unclear question is the problem here.

Lentils at 87p is rounded to £1, so seven tins are £7.
Without the words it is difficult to know what was wanted.

It has to be £0.87 per can because you can't divide it by 7.

A man collapsed in the lentil aisle at my local supermarket.
Fortunately, when the paramedics arrived, they found a pulse.

😬

If you round it as if lentils were a total of £0.87, so rounded to £1, is that still wrong?

I just found out I'm allergic to legumes
Doctor says it's a lentil illness.

😁

This is really fucking mean.

My father told me that 65% of the lentils they farm go to Asia.
I asked him if they were ori-lentils.

🤓

If everything else is calculated & then rounded up/down why wouldn't lentils be also?

Is it different if something is sold by the unit rather than weight?

Can you post the question?

If it says something like John rounds the unit price to the nearest £1 while shopping so he can estimate the total cost and stay in budget, they want you to round 87p to £1. Or does it specify that they want you to round up rather than to the nearest £?

It will be £6.09 and the computer programme will be wrong.

I know this as my son's maths would glitch all the time and it would really piss me off as it makes children very very very confused and frustrated.

I don't know the L2 FS Maths (yet, may come in 2025), but it seems to me that if you are viewing this as a functional maths / shopping task you would logically round the price of each thing, because it would be an estimation question. No point doing all the detailed calculations then estimating the final sum, if you can do that you might as well add everything up properly.
If I were going round the shop keeping a running total I may well say 87p, call it £1, so that's £7 ....

Fancy using the term picked up for bought, very uneducated way of expressing yourself in a test.