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Numeracy Test Answers And Explanations

The questions at the end of the article on NAPLAN testing (a few posts below) were selected from those close to the end of the paper. They are among the harder questions

Question One.

Each person gets two votes. So there will be twice as many votes as people. Add up the number of votes shown by each bar in the graph to get a total number of votes. Divide that total by two. There are twenty-six votes, so there are thirteen people in the club.

Question Two.

I had to stop and think about this one. There are two unknown factors of 96. One factor divided by the other = six. So (at least) one of the two factors is divisible by six.

The next step, unless you are very brainy, is to write down the six times table: 1×6=6,2×6=12, 3×6=18, 4×6=24. We can stop there, because 4×24=96. So we know 4 and 24 are the two mystery factors.

We can check by remembering that the problem tells us their product is 96, and that one divided by the other is 6. 24 x 4 = 96. 24 divided by 4 is 6.

Question 3.

Total weight lifted = 26kgs. The bar weighs 4kgs. So the total amount of weights to be added to the bar is 22kgs. Divide this by two to get the amount to put on each side = 11kgs.

Of the weights shown, what combination will make 11kgs? Three 2kg weights, and one 5kg weight. So to show the total number of weights used, you would shade six 2kg weights, and two 5kg weights.

These questions are not easy – but why should they be? Most of the questions, like problems one and three in my examples, involve  commonplace, real life applications of maths skills.

I won’t wish students and teachers good luck. Too much everyday success or failure is blamed on luck or the lack of it.

With good teaching and conscientious study, you don’t need good luck.

Best Chance Yet For Extra-Terrestrial Life

Scientists at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland have found an earth-like planet orbiting the red dwarf start Gliese, about 20 light years away. The planet’s gravity is too high to support life in forms similar to those of living things on Earth.

But the estimated average temperature of the planet is 0-40 degrees Celsius. This means that most of the water on the planet will be in liquid form.

On Earth, anywhere there is liquid water, there is life.  So the chances are very good indeed that some sort of life exists on the newly discovered planet.

Let’s go say hello!

A Few Windows Tips

1. Don’t install Apple’s Bonjour programme.

Bonjour is meant to simplify network setup and connectivity between your computer and ‘smart’ devices. In fact Windows handles network setup perfectly well, and Bonjour simply adds another layer of complication. In some cases it will stop internet access completely. If you are running Vista and install service pack 2 (still at RC stage), and then find you have no internet access, Bonjour is almost certainly the cause.

Google lists about 1.5 milion pages if you search under Bonjour problems. One of those problems is that it installs itself on your system without your permission. That’s just rude.

Check to see whether it is installed on your computer. If it is, uninstall it.

2. Don’t install Magentic wallpapers or screensavers.

You may be offered these, or already have them, if you use (why?) Incredimail.  They look pretty, but can cause a number of problems, including making Internet Explorer pop up a difficult to get rid of blank page whenever the screensaver kicks in.

3. If you use Office 2007 and have lost or cannot see the ribbon, right click on the menu bar and uncheck ‘Minimize the Ribbon.’

Climate Changing On Climate Change

This from the current edition of The Professional Edge, the journal of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geo-Scientists of Saskatchewan. This links to a PDF file. See from page ten on.

A couple of excerpts:

Add a dash of guilt and fear of the apocalypse, and how can the citizenry resist the call to “save the planet”? But when you stop and think about it, the apocalyptic predictions don’t quite make sense scientifically…

Therefore the suspicions of any scientist should be aroused by glib assertions like “the science is settled” or “there is a consensus,” because this is not how scientists and engineers operate. Al Gore’s movie and books are so appallingly riddled with mistakes and outlandish exaggerations that they would be laughable if they weren’t taken so seriously by so many…

There has grown a whole industry of  taxpayer-funded climate modellers whose equations can’t reproduce last week’s weather let alone past climate change at all, but whose crystal balls universally forecast impending disaster (and of course the urgent need for more research money)…

Why haven’t physicists pointed out the basic mistakes in the science? Why haven’t more geoscientists stood up to correct the misconceptions about natural, long-term climate change?

Via Small Dead Animals

Strangely, Something Worthwhile at Durban II

The U.N. Durban II (Geneva) conference for racism and anti-semitism was planned and organised by the world’s worst perpetrators of racism and human rights abuses. A representative of Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Qaddafi, Mrs. Najjat al-Hajjaji, has chaired the Durban II Preparatory Committee for the past two years, and at the beginning of the conference was elected chair of the Durban II Main Committee.

The rank hypocrisy of Durban II was exposed before the world this week when UN Watch surprised the Libyan chair — by bringing a victim of Qaddafi torture to confront her on Libya’s brutal torture and scapegoating of five Bulgairan nurses and a Palestinian doctor.

From UN Watch – this links to the video.

National Literacy And Numeracy Testing

Teachers are preparing their year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students for the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy tests which will take place around Australia from the 12th to the 19th of May.

This national testing scheme was introduced last year. The idea is that it gives students, teachers and parents an objective way to compare their school’s, and individual children’s, level of knowledge and skill with others around the country. This makes it easier to identify particular schools and children who need more support.

It may also help in identifying teachers who are underperforming, so naturally the AEU (Australian Education Union) doesn’t like it.

One of the criticisms was that the tests were unrealistically hard.

I was able obtain copies of last year’s tests. There was some spelling in the literacy tests, but the greatest emphasis seemed to be on students’ ability to interpret a variety of common texts: recipes, a newspaper cutting, a short story.

The literacy tests seemed fair for their year level. They required an ability to think about the meaning of ordinary texts, and to apply that knowledge. Generally single word answers were required, and these were either right or wrong – making the test easy to mark, and providing a straightforward objective result.

This is exactly what parents want. They want clear, objective information that shows what their child has learned, and how his or her performance compares with that of other students in their own community and nationally.

The numeracy tests were also good in terms of design, and questions were appropriate for the year level they were testing.

I have run a number of quiz nights for various organisations over the years. In each bracket of ten questions I will put a couple which any dimwit should be able to answer. Then there will be five or six which you might confidently expect someone in a group of six or eight adults to know.  Then there will be two or three which will test even an intelligent and well-read person

The NAPLAN tests seemed to be organised in much the same way. At each year level there were some questions which any student with half a brain should have been able to answer. Most of the other questions were solvable with a bit of thought by an average student. And a few were required some deeper knowledge or thought.

I have copied three (out of 45) questions below from the year five (11 year olds) numeracy test. I’ll post answers and explanations a little later. Enjoy!

NAPLAN Numeracy Problem 1

NAPLAN Numeracy Problem 1

 

NAPLAN Numeracy Problem 2

NAPLAN Numeracy Problem 2

 

NAPLAN Numeracy Problem 3

NAPLAN Numeracy Problem 3

Hundreds of Millions Hurt By Stupidity Says Oxfam

No they didn’t. They said hundreds of millions would be hurt by climate change.

It is true that lots of people are hurt each year in natural disasters. But apart from increased casualties caused by more densely concentrated populations, there is no reason to believe that there are more ‘climate’ disasters than ever before.

The claim is that a warmer world means more hurricanes and major storm disasters. It doesn’t. Models of climate change which assume anthopogenic warming say the poles will warm more than the tropics. Major weather is driven by the difference in temperature between the tropics and poles. That difference decreases when the poles get warmer. This should result in not more, but fewer, major storms.

But in any case the world has been cooling for the last ten years and the net change in global temperature over the last century is now approximately zero.

No one is going to be hurt by man-made climate change.

People are going to be hurt if industrialised nations deny developing countries the opportunity to build power stations and major industries because of ‘climate concerns.’

So yes, unless world leaders really begin to look at the evidence, and base environmental and development policies on that evidence, then hundreds of millions will be hurt by stupidity.

Cost Of Public Transport

Queensland commuters may get free rides on trains, buses and ferries if they travel at off-peak times, says Qld Minister for Transport Rachel Nolan.

This is being considered because public transport is overloaded at peak hours and under-utilised at other times.

What made that news story of interest to me was that Rachel Nolan noted that the state government subsidises the cost of public transport by $3-$4 for every dollar spent by commuters. I guess the figure would be similar in other states.

In other words, if someone pays a dollar for his or her train fare, the taxpayer pays another $3-$4. Every time.

I’d like to know that there has been some sort of evidence based, not just wishful thinking based, study that shows that this level of subsidy for public transport is a reasonable and cost effective investment. In other words, that the benefits to the wider community outweigh the cost, and that tax payers would not be better off if this money was spent somewhere else.

If that is the case, then I don’t mind paying for other people’s bus tickets.

UN Chief ‘Deplores’ Anti-Semitic Rant

Ban Ki Moon described Imanutjob’s speech and the subsequent walk out by the few civilised nations still at the Geneva racism conference as a “very troubling experience for me as a Secretary General.”

Oh, please. Spare us.

Every one of the nitwits now complaining that gosh, they had no idea Imanutjob was going to be so nasty, and gee whiz, if they’d only known, etc, etc, is telling porkies.

When addressing the conference, Ahmadinejad criticised the creation of a “totally racist government in occupied Palestine” in 1948, calling it “the most cruel and racist regime”.

Durban I was a  rascist hate-fest. Mr Imanutjob has repeatedly asserted that the Zionist entity should be wiped from the face of the earth. He claimed as he was on the way to Geneva for Durban II that the ‘Zionist ideology and regime are the flag bearers of racism.’

It is just a nonsense for Ban Ki Moon or any other UN official now to act all innocent and dismayed. They knew exactly what was coming.

The Courageous Heart Of Irena Sendler

Can’t wait for this CBS made for broadcast movie to be shown in Australia.

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

As a Polish Catholic social worker in the early 1940s, Irena Sendler created and led a conspiracy of women who moved in and out of Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto disguised as nurses employed by Warsaw’s Health Department. Though they worked under the guise of merely attempting to prevent and contain the spread of Typhus and Spotted Fever, Sendler and her brave cohorts emerged each time with the children of consenting Jewish parents. The children were sometimes sedated and hidden inside boxes, suitcases and coffins as a means of rescuing them from their imminent deportation to death camps. They were given new identities and placed with Polish families and in convents. Sendler kept a hidden record of their birth names and where they were placed with the hope that they would some day be reunited with their own families.

In 1943, the Nazis discovered Sendler’s daring and dangerous ruse and arrested her. She was tortured by Gestapo agents and suffered broken feet. On the day of her scheduled execution she was rescued by “Zegota,” the underground network with which she worked to save the Jewish children.

As a result of Sendler’s efforts, approximately 2,500 children were smuggled to safety. Not a single child she rescued was ever betrayed or discovered by the Nazis.

Wind Farms An Expensive Waste Of Time

A real-world test performed by the Dutch province of Zeeland (a very windy place) confirms that small windmills are a fundamentally flawed technology. Twelve wind turbines were placed in a row on an open plain. Their energy yield was measured over a period of one year (April 1, 2008 – March 31, 2009). The average wind velocity during these 12 months was 3.8 meters per second (slightly higher than average). Three windmills broke.

The others produced some energy. But at outrageous costs compared with traditional methods of power production.

Financial payback time is much longer than their life expectancy and in urban areas they will not even deliver as much energy as was needed to produce them.

I’m sure larger wind turbines have the same fundamental flaws – high cost, high breakdown rates, energy used to produce, install and maintain them is out of proportion to the energy they produce, and other methods of energy production need to built anyway, because wind power cannot be relied on for consistent supply.

Via Small Dead Animals.

Real Beauty

Eric at Big Hollywood writes about real beauty – the kind Susan Boyle has, and real ugliness, the kind Janeane Garofalo has.

I won’t say much more – it’s worth reading the whole thing.

But I share his frustration at the view expressed by Garofalo and others that the only possible reason any one could disagree with Barack Obama about anything is because he is black.

Worried about tax policy? No you’re not. You’re a racist redneck.

Worried about where money for massive ‘stimulus’ spending is going to come from? No you’re not. You’re a racist redneck.

Worried about Obama’s foreign policy? No you’re not…. You get the idea.

One of the convenient things about that kind of thinking is that you never have to bother engaging with people’s concerns or answering their questions. You can just dismiss them because they are, you know, racist rednecks. But given the kind of nonsensical nastiness Garofalo apparently believes, a lack of further engagement with her is probably a good thing.

And aren’t rednecks ordinary working people, the kind the Democrats were supposed to represent?

Imanutjob Kicks Off UN Hitler Birthday Celebrations

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and described the Holocaust as a “myth” — arrived in Geneva late on Sunday as one of the few heads of state attending the conference.

Setting off for Switzerland, Ahmadinejad , who is seeking re-election in June, was quoted by Iran’s state broadcaster as saying ‘The Zionist ideology and regime are the flag bearers of racism.’

Various UN and human rights organisations have claimed that by not attending the Durban II conference the US, Australia and others are ‘turning their backs on victims of racism.’  Rubbish.

They would have a lot more credibility if they told Imanutjob to shut up and tidy up his own back yard.

How can anyone with a shred of decency or intelligence attend a conference where Imanutjob and others dominate proceedings, whose countries routinely hang or behead gay men, stone women who have been raped, and permit the marriage of girls as young a six to much older men, or, as in the case of Burma and Sudan, are carrying out systematic murders of any of their own citizens who are not the right race or religion?

The whole thing is just an bloody, expensive, embarassment.

Gay Lobby Demands Total Compliance

Or else.

Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton won the Miss USA title earlier today. Good for her.

But trouble started after runner-up Carrie Prejean (Miss California) was asked this question: ‘Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalise same-sex marriage … do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?’

Carrie said: ‘We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offence to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.’

Some in the audience obviously agreed. But many others booed her.

She was asked her opinion. What was she supposed to do – lie?

But no, it’s not good enough. No one is allowed to doubt the all encompassing beauty of gay marriage, far less actually voice such a repugnant opinion.

‘It’s ugly,’ said Scott Ihrig, a gay man, who attended the pageant with his partner. ‘I think it’s ridiculous that she got first runner-up. That is not the value of 95 percent of the people in this audience. Look around this audience and tell me how many gay men there are.’

Yes there are lots of them, so they must be right, and no one is allowed to think any different.

Fights then broke out in the lobby. Something is ugly here, but it isn’t Carrie.

Leading Earth Scientist Says Climate Alarmists Like Creationists.

Because both global warming alarmists and creationists care more about defending their entrenched positions than they do for the evidence.

In comments on another blog I was recently accused of being a denialist because I pointed out that the world was not getting any warmer, and that there was no correlation between human production of CO2 and changes in global climate.

Science is about asking questions. It is not denial to look at the evidence.

Saturday’s Australian has another surprisingly fair story about Professor Ian Plimer – Australia’s best known geologist. A couple of excerpts below:

While an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide theoretically may contribute to temperature rise, Plimer says there is no evidence to show this and plenty of proof, if you choose to look for it, to the contrary.

Climate changes are cyclical and driven by the Earth’s position in the galaxy, the sun, wobbles in the planet’s orbit, ocean currents and plate tectonics. When he peers back in time, there were periods when atmospheric CO2 was much higher than it is now yet produced no disastrous shift in the climate.

To reduce climate change to the single variable of carbon emissions abandons “all we know about planet Earth, the sun and the cosmos”, Plimer says, and that is a leap of faith no self-respecting scientist should take.

“The science is now based on consensus, and we have thousands of scientists who have got everything to gain by saying the world is going to end. We have lost the tie to evidence. So I make a great comparison … between the way creationists operate and the way some of the rabid environmentalists and global warmers operate. The parallels are quite similar.”

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