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Singapore 6A question


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We just started working with this. The format is definitely different from the other versions (we are doing Standards).

 

Question: Sean saves $p a month. He saves twice as much as Eve. Holly saves twice as much as Sean in a month.

 

a) How much money does Eve save in a month? Express the answer in terms of p.

 

DD11 wrote  her answer as: P/2

Singapore answer is 1/2 P 

Is DD's answer just as effective? This is how I would have written it btw.

 

c) How much money do Sean and Eve save? Express the answers in terms of p.

 

DD11 wrote her answer as: p/2 + p

Singapore answer 1 1/2 p

The singapore answer here is obviously better, but considering her answer for a) above, I can see why she did it.

 

My brain is having a hard time because it's been a long time since algebra, and I'm aware this is a super easy question.

 

I just want to make sure I give her the best explanation possible and I'm struggling.

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The answers are equivalent, and since the book did not specify a certain form to use, your daughter's answers are perfectly fine. In fact, I prefer her answer in the second one over what the book gave because mixed numbers are almost never used in algebra and beyond.

 

Be warned: The problem of recognizing equivalent or equally valid answers will only get worse in high school math. The answer key is a help, but not an absolute authority!

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The answers are equivalent, and since the book did not specify a certain form to use, your daughter's answers are perfectly fine. In fact, I prefer her answer in the second one over what the book gave because mixed numbers are almost never used in algebra and beyond.

 

Be warned: The problem of recognizing equivalent or equally valid answers will only get worse in high school math. The answer key is a help, but not an absolute authority!

 

Thanks for your response!

 

So you are saying that even though her answer isn't fully simplified, it's still valid? It's been a loooooooong time since I did algebra, and while I was good at it 25 years ago, it's not "coming back" to me yet, lol!

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Her answers are definitely valid, and I would count them for full credit unless the question specified a certain form. The first answer is fully simplified, too. The second answer can be written as a monomial, which might be considered "simplified," but there are certain problems in algebra (such as geometric series in algebra 2 or precalculus) where the form that she gave would actually be *more* helpful in seeing the pattern of the solution.

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