Maths question. Am I going mad or is the answer book wrong?

[menacethedennis]

How many days inclusive from 19th Feb 2006 to 5th March 2006?

It's not a leap year afaik, so surely the answer is 15?

But the answer book says 16. And the teacher, or whoever marked it, agrees with the answer book. (I did put a note on saying I thought it was wrong, but got no response, just a big fat cross).

For reference, it is Schofield & Sims Mental Arithmetic 5. Section 1, Test 10, B9.

For me it is 15

I make it 15 days. I've checked it on my fingers several times now too .

I'm also assuming it's not a leap year as I though they had to be divisible by 4 (so 2000, 2004, 2008 and so on).

I get 15.

www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?d1=19&m1=02&y1=2006&d2=05&m2=03&y2=2006&ti=on
says 15

That's odd. I agree with you, as does this calculator

I get 15 too. 2006 wasn't a leap year.

answer book? DD bring home to Schofield & Sims book every Monday night for homework. She likes me to check her answers and let her know if she's got any wrong so I work them all out myself! had no idea there was an answer book - I could have saved myself hours!

I remember DD getting this wrong, and tbh I just assumed we had both worked it out incorrectly - good to know that we may have been right

15 if it's not a leap year, 16 if it is. 2006 = not exactly divisible by 4, therefore not a leap year, therefore the answer is 15 and the book and the teacher are Wrong.

sorry all, it says inclusive, so you have to count the 19th and the 6th, so I make it 16 too.

It doesn't go to the 6th March, it goes to the 5th March.

Geiger, yes, I got the answer book from Amazon when I found I was spending almost as long checking the answers as it was taking DC to write them :)

GetKnitted, I spotted the word "inclusive", so that's not the problem.

I think we all did, menace!

Definitely 15 (unless I have lost or grown a finger)

ha! love it, my maths is fine but my eyesight...!!

It's 15. The book is wrong.

I agree, 15, not a leap year.

Maybe the answer is right but the typo is in the question and it should be 2016?

My theory is the question originally said "2004" but it was edited on the grounds that children weren't necessarily expected to know that was a Leap Year. They changed it, but just didn't adjust the answer to match.

Anyway, I've emailed the publisher to let them know. Thanks all for reassuring me I'm not mad!

It seems to me to be a really badly thought out question, assuming it is not meant to be testing the ability to work out which years are leap years! Why use those dates? If part of the point is to test knowledge of how many days a non-leap-year Feb has, then it should state "2006 was not a leap year". Otherwise it should just use different months!

Have you mentioned to the teacher again? I would.

My ds came home from school one day saying that his teacher had told him he needed to use real words. Ds said discombobulated is a real word. I didn't talk to the teacher about it and ds still grumbles about it.

15. The book is wrong.