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Explain the logistics of sawing an object into two pieces in ten minutes and taking only fifteen minutes to saw it into three pieces at the same time. Go.</p>
<p>In order for there to be an answer of 15, you have to start with 0 pieces. But that’s impossible. You have to start with 1 piece in order to get more pieces out of it.</p>
<p>The point is, it’s possible to saw into one or two or three pieces. To saw into one piece, one forms it by cutting with a saw. Same with two pieces and three pieces. Do you want me to look up the verb “form”?</p>
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It IS possible to saw one piece, but you end up with two pieces - a net increase of one piece.
What?</p>
<p>I meant as in, saw INTO one piece.
You can saw from one board into one piece, or one into two pieces, or one into three pieces. All you do is work on the perimeters. Three pieces has 1.5x the perimeter of 2 pieces, and 3x the perimeter of 1 piece. (suppose the patterns you want on the pieces are semicircles all facing one side. You can’t do this to two pieces with one cut because the reflection of this pattern doesn’t create itself)</p>
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Into another piece, sure. But that’s two pieces, not one.If you saw one thing so that you end with one piece, you haven’t sawed it.</p>
<p>^^ The material you cut away would constitute other pieces.</p>
<p>Technically the teacher isn’t wrong in her thinking. Collegeboard wants us to think like this when we approach these types of questions. The wording of the question is wrong and illogical though. It should be reworded as “to obtain 2 pieces in 10 min” not “saw”.</p>
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No it doesn’t. Why would it want you to think in a way that results in a wrong answer? In fact, I would expect it to ask it the way exactly as is because it obviously is throwing people off, even teachers.</p>
<p>Did you read the sentence after that. I said the “wording” of the question is wrong. Thus it results in wrong thinking. Had the wording of the question been better worded then it wouldn’t have thrown everyone off. Look at past examples that are similar to this. All of those examples can be solved using the exact same method. It is just this question that’s an exception. But that’s because it’s not even an official example from Collegeboard. So don’t blame Collegeboard’s methods; blame that practice book the OP has.</p>
<p>^ I don’t really understand that logic. That’s like saying that “How fast can a cat run?” is a poorly-worded version of “How far can a cat run?” It isn’t; it’s a completely different question.</p>
<p>It’s poorly worded because that one word (saw) is allowing logic and an intended method to solve the problem to mix. The flaw here is that the book didn’t intend for any logic to be present in this question. The book didn’t want you to think that 10 min = 1 cut; it wanted you to think that 10 min= 2 boards. Basically, the book forgot about logic, which is evident through the wording in this question. See what I’m trying to say?</p>
<p>^Exactly. Whoever wrote that question is wrong. Sorry if I was harsh in response to your statement; I know it’s not an SAT question but I was just trying to say that if it was going to be one, it would be the way as stated with the answer of 20, because of the logic required to get to the answer. However, I would say the teacher is wrong in her thinking though. Anyways, I think we can agree the teacher IS wrong.</p>
<p>OP, did you ever ask the teacher about this? What did she say?</p>
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<p>That’s false. A student shouldn’t be held accountable for his own interpretations…he is not expected to think the same way as his teacher.</p>
<p>@hahalolk, this wasn’t the OP’s test. This teacher fail has been posted around the web. I saw it on Failblog before it was linked to here.</p>
<p>^I did not know that.</p>