Mathematical problem

[Cami]

 

[Mudcat]

I come up with ??? = 2.

I would have thought the reasoning was more advanced for a pre-schooler than they are saying, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

Or maybe my solution, although I can justify it, is not the one they are looking for at all.

 

[Matty]

Muddy you have the right answer. The premise is misleading, since the pre-schoolers would've been given complete instructions.

BTW I cheated and googled the answer. It's retarded.

 

[xpansive]

Only see 2 circles in that last one...

Yay, i can still think like a kid lol

 

[xpansive]

I come up with ??? = 2.

I would have thought the reasoning was more advanced for a pre-schooler than they are saying, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

Or maybe my solution, although I can justify it, is not the one they are looking for at all.

As soon as i heard the word preschooler i knew it had nothing to do with mathematics...

 

[Matty]

Yeh. Me dum dum.

 

[RayRay]

haha, did you take the extremely long scenic route to get to 2 muddy?

 

[Mudcat]

Oh. Looks like I got the right answer for the wrong reason.

Or not actually the wrong reason - my answer is completely justifiable - but it does involve math. I just didn't clue in that the values I was assigning to numbers happened to match the number of loops.



Still though, took me less than 5 minutes. Probably 2.

 

[reno cool]

so how you did it Muddy?

 

[tullamore]

There is no way a pre school kid figures this out, without more info.

 

[xpansive]

There is no way a pre school kid figures this out, without more info.

Tully, you really think pre-schoolers know mathematics??

They know shapes and basic numbers which they use to make sense of their world...

 

[Cougar Bait]

 

[Mudcat]

so how you did it Muddy?

Well sir, I scanned the information and immediately noticed there were a bunch of "4 of a kinds" which were all equal to 0 or 4 - which led me to hypothesize that maybe the numbers had different values and we were adding them together and the values in those cases were 0 and 1.

That actually accounted for quite a few numbers and from there, I looked at other sets of numbers where there was only 1 missing/unknown and easily surmised what it must be. My premise could easily have been wrong and I was expecting to run afoul at any time but it held together.



Ended up with a value of 0 for 1, 2, 3, 5, 7

And a value of 1 for 4, 6, 0, 9

And a value of 2 for 8




I didn't clue in till someone mentioned it later in this thread that those values corresponded to the number of loops in the characters.

 

[reno cool]

I see. So it's no coincidence you got the right answer. There are no 4s. But somehow you have proven the triangle ultimately acts like a circle. very interesting

 

[Mudcat]

Oh yeah, no 4's. How did that get in there?

 

[Cami]

I initially took Muddy's approach and was evaluating numbers and patterns and what not. Once I re-read the fact the pre-schoolers could do it, and I saw that my friends daughter figured it out in like two minutes I started to think in kiddie terms, and that's when I realized it was all about the circles. Took me about 20 minutes to figure it out all in all.

 

[Saulty]

It'a an art problem because it does not involve mathematics to be solved.

 

[reno cool]

I have my doubts about the preschoolers. Unless they were told to count the circles they didnt figure out shit.

:bringit: preschoolers