Following on from yesterday’s experience with the captain’s age puzzle, I think there are issues around context and that he was looking for clues to solve a riddle. So I made him a ‘which ones can we answer?’ puzzles sheet. Do you want to hear how it went? #tmwyk 1/n https://twitter.com/peterrowlett/status/1288174865170804739

Prompt 1. He read it and said “No”. I asked why not? He read it again and said “7+5. She must be very older than the dragon I think. But I don’t know how old.” 2/n

I asked “Do we have enough information to answer the question?”
“We’re missing how many birthdays Jane’s had.”
I asked “What do you know about Jane?”
“We know she was 5 and she got a baby egg. 7+5. Twelve!”
3/n

Prompt 2. “No”
“Why do you think so?”
He read it again. “So it arrived in the next morning I think. No. I think it’s a question we can’t answer.”
“What would you need to be able to answer it?”
“Not sure”. Looks at it again. “1 o’clock plus 4 hours.” 4/n

Interjection from his mum with anecdote about him telling the time well yesterday. Then I asked “What’s 1 o’clock plus 1 hour?”
“2 o’clock”
“So what’s 1 o’clock plus 4 hours?”
“5 o’clock!” 5/n

Prompt 3. “That’s not enough information!”
Do the numbers help you?
“No. Numbers don’t get colours!” 6/n

Prompt 4. “Not sure”
“What is it asking you?”
“How many teeth.”
“Do the numbers relate to the number of teeth?”
“If he had 12 teeth he would only have 6 if 6 fell out.”
“Yes! So do the numbers help you work it out?”
“Yes!” Then he worked it out using an #explodingdots machine.7/n

“I don’t know because it isn’t enough information. An hour of television and 14 grapes is how long she did school work.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I know that the numbers help on every other.” 8/n

We talked about the colour of the front door in prompt 3 and how the information didn’t help us answer that one. He said maybe if we mixed green from cabbage and orange from carrots together it would give us the colour of his door. 9/n

We talked about how the point of these questions is that we don’t always have enough information to answer, and he concluded we don’t have enough here either. 10/n

Prompt 6. He said we already know, you can answer it. I asked him to think whether the numbers relate to what we are being asked. He said yes. I wrote the 2nd part of the question, inspired by @carolspringett5. He read it and said “Younger. He’s 10 now, because 4+6 is 10.” 11/n

I asked him to think about a ship’s captain who delivers some cargo and picks up some more cargo. Would he have got younger while that was happening?
“No, older!” So he concluded you can’t answer these questions. 12/n

I said isn’t it funny some Qs don’t have enough information in them. He said “I’ve got one for you. Why is a raven like a writing desk?” This is from Alice in Wonderland, which we just re-read. The Hatter asks it, but doesn’t know the answer. He said “That’s one of those!” 13/13

Useful thinking on this all from @alisonkiddle, @Trianglemancsd @Tony_Mann and others.

I don’t think he is just blindly adding up any number he can find, but I do think he thinks puzzles have answers and the person setting the puzzle will have hidden the answer in there somewhere. This is feeling related to the struggles our 1st year undergrads have with modelling.