As Mary wasn't at school today, her teacher decided to send her the homework by text message using his old mobile phone. Unfortunately the teacher did not know how to use the predictive text facility so the wrong words were sent. Can you figure out the correct NewAnswers? Predictive Text entry, allows you to enter text by pressing only one key per letter. As you enter a word, the phone will automatically compare all of the possible letter combinations against a built in dictionary of words, and determine which word you intended to type. When it guesses incorrectly, you will get the type of result seen here. Other words have been substituted for the ones we want. |
|
One + Five = 6
Three x Eight = 24
Forty Six x Eight = 368
Nine x Forty Four = 396
Words produced by the same combination of keypresses are often referred to as "textonyms". This was the method coded messages were sent in the Sam Bourne novel "The Righteous Men".
| The Righteous Men is also available as an audio book. | ||
663 + 3483 = 4146
84733 x 34448 = 2918882384
36789749 x 34448 = 1267333273552
6463 x 367893687 = 2377696899081
Do you have any comments? It is always useful to receive feedback and helps make this free resource even more useful for those learning Mathematics anywhere in the world. Click here to enter your comments.
Your access to the majority of the Transum resources continues to be free but you can help support the continued growth of the website by doing your Amazon shopping using the links on this page. Below is an Amazon link. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small amount from qualifying purchases which helps pay for the upkeep of this website.
Educational Technology on Amazon
|
Teacher, do your students have access to computers such as tablets, iPads or Laptops? It would be great to follow up this Starter with an interactive student activity below. |
|
Here is the URL which will take them to a related activity on code breaking.
Mr.Whiitick, Castnf Primary
Friday, February 13, 2009
"Wow my Maths set of Year 5s really got stuck. Good Maths starter but hard!"
Year 8, MSJ
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
"Really good, clever idea. some students found the concept hard."
6S, Cambridge Primary
Monday, March 1, 2010
"Once we'd got the idea of it, we found this cool!! Our teacher helped us a bit!"
Tom Nick, Wellington College
Thursday, February 24, 2011
"EPIC Puzzle. Very fun."
Bob Casel, Mount Cook School
Thursday, February 24, 2011
"Logicly Speaking the 3 can be a 4 making this into a maths paradox
but on the other hand decimly it will be a 3 being a 4x4=16."
5th Class, Cloghroe National School, Co. Cork, Ireland
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
"This was good fun, but quite difficult. It took a quarter of an hour for most of the class to get the answer. It was well worth doing."
P6/7 St Elizabeth,
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
"Fantastic! P6/7 loved the problem and once we understood the concept we found it really easy!"
Transum,
Thursday, February 27, 2014
"Just wondering for how many more years will this starter be relevant. The photograph is an old phone and the newer phones don’t require predictive text as they provide a full keyboard. The comments above suggest that you like this starter but happy to replace it with something more up to date if you think pupils won’t relate to this."
Y5, Willen
Monday, February 27, 2017
"We got half if it but now we are stuck - where are the answers?
[Transum: Keep trying Year 5. There answers are available to teachers and appear lower down this page when the teacher is signed in.]"