This morning David Coffey asked (on twitter) for thoughts on a visual pattern problem:
I didn’t like the problem that much. My main objection, I suppose, is that the first three choices are so easy to eliminate that a correct answer to this question isn’t that informative.
Not that multiple choice questions are going to be super informative anyway, but I suggestion a revision to make the question more like they type of question that Fawn Nguyen asks on her site visualpatterns.org
My question was: How many blocks are in row 42 and my choices were 82, 84, 87, and 89.
Tonight I had my younger son work through both questions. Here’s how it went:
Here is his work on the original question:
Here’s the work on the revised question:
Mike's Math Page 