Re: the 97% rule and american education standards (LONG)
Gordon Irlam (gordoni@base.com)
Sat, 6 Apr 1996 18:44:35 -0800 (PST)
> > If, in a school of 1,000 lockers, one student opens every locker, a second
> > student closes every other locker (second, fourth, sixth, etc.), a third
> > student changes every third locker (opens closed lockers and closes open
> > lockers) and so on until the 1,000th student changes the 1,000th locker,
> > which lockers are open? <bg- huh? I don't even know where to begin without
> > doing it longhand and taking an entire day>
>
> This is a little nasty, isn't it, folks? Frankly, it's even beyond SAT work
> (which I had a 13 something on that year).
>
> Let's see: student n changed every nth bit. So, locker k is changed by #of
> divisors. And they want you to compute the PARITY of the number of divisors of
> every number from 1-1000? Well, we know all the prime lockers are closed, so
> we can use the prime density as an upper bound... :-)
>
> Nutso. I mean, they tried this on Math Team, but for *everyone*? They're
> kidding themselves.
Hmmm, parity?? Rohit? Grade 8 math?
1, 4, 9, 16, 25, ...
Factors come in pairs
Except when squares...
I'm still puzzling about the grade 4 geography question. I thought
plains where created by sedimentary processes from rivers and/or possibly
uplift of the ocean bed, mountains by plates crashing into each other,
canyons erosion by rivers, and deltas by river deposition.
Volanoes?? Which of these do they create? Was this an April fools thing?