Dad baffled by seven-year-old's homework question that even grown-ups can't solve – The Mirror US
A dad has found himself at a loss with his son's school homework, describing it as 'too tricky' even for adults to solve.
His seven-year-old son came home with a geometry homework assignment, which he was supposed to finish within the week. However, they both hit a snag when struggling with one particular question.
The baffled dad turned to social media for assistance after the problem proved challenging for both of them. Posting on Reddit, he shared his confusion: "My son brought home a homework assignment where one of the questions shows a rectangular prism and asks to 'Fill in the missing information' and has two columns with 'Can' and 'Has' at the top. I thought maybe it's asking what the shape can be – it can be a cube, for example."
They learn that certain shapes can slide or roll, this would slide It has 6 flat faces, 8 vertices, and 12 edges." He added: "Or, what the shape has – parallel sides, maybe?
"But I'd expect (even for second grade) there to be some indication of parallelism or that the corners include right angles rather than asking the student to presume those things. Any ideas?"
One user chimed in on his post, suggesting: "Are there any other examples on the assignment? Just based off of this I'm inclined to agree with how you read the problem."
Another user chimed in: "They learn that certain shapes can slide or roll, this would slide. It has 6 flat faces, 8 vertices, and 12 edges."
A third user weighed in: "I would say it is not a can, not spherical enough. It has a 3D shape, 12 edges, 6 sides, 8 corners, 2 squares, 4 rectangles. I'm not exactly sure what it can do." Yet another user added: "Primary teacher here!
"For HAS you'll count edges, faces and vertices. 3D shapes have edges (not sides), so your child would use a marker to draw over every edge.
"They learn that certain shapes can slide or roll, this would slide. It has 6 flat faces, 8 vertices, and 12 edges. Then, have them make a dot on each angle (corners), which is called a vertex.
"Lastly, faces are flat spaces – flat spaces to draw a happy face! For CAN, it's asking about movement.
"3D shapes can slide, roll, stack etc." The dad confirmed the correct answer, stating: "I reached out to the teacher and she agreed the question is poorly-worded.
"She agreed with my (and others') suggestion that possible "CAN" answers include "be a cube" and possible "HAS" answers include "six sides", "eight corners", etc. **Hence**, I'm going to call this post 'Answered'.
"I don't have a problem with a teacher using resources created by a third party and I think she is an excellent teacher, so I won't begrudge her for not noticing the potential issue with the question."
