Math Literacy

This strategy is about making discoveries by reading between the lines. Many times in word problems this is very true. The problem may be asking for a specific solution without directly telling you what operation you need to do or how to exactly solve it. Such as in the problem “Traffic Jam.” Your goal was to move all the cars from the Omaha side to the Council Bluffs side and vice versa and then answer a series of questions. You needed to make some inferences and predictions about the patterns the cars followed.

Inferences made in this problem may be left still unsolved after you are through with a type of problem such as this. There are many math problems throughout history that still remain unsolved. Mathematicians have used inferences and predictions about patterns of numbers without ever proving they are 100% correct and making sure it will ALWAYS happen in the predicted manner. Problems such as Traffic Jam and the Sieve of Eratosthenes are just conjectures. They do not have a clear-cut solution to the problem.

With predictions you may make with word problems, there will be a solution by the time you are done going through the problem-solving you have chosen. Most word problems you will be working on will have a clear-cut solution.

In EQUATIONS TUG OF WAR, there is a clear-cut solution to the problem. Let’s make some predictions about who is going to win. Then you can continue on with your assignment.

MAKING INFERENCES ASSIGNMENT