In silence read the following carefully before starting work:
1. Add 17 to 170.
2. Multiply 12 by 2.
3. Subtract the first even number from the second square number.
4. Divide a million by a thousand.
5. Write out the first 20 multiples of 5.
6. Multiply this year by last year without using a calculator.
7. If a square is also a rectangle write down your age squared.
8. If finding a fraction of a number makes it smaller work out a half squared.
9. If 2(x + 3) = 6 + 2x what is the value of x?
10. Write down all of the numbers which have 6 as a factor.
Now that you have read all of the questions do only question 1 then sit back with your arms folded and smile at your teacher.
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The answer is 187
Did you do questions 2 to 10 also?
APRIL FOOL
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Teacher, do your students have access to computers such as tablets, iPads or Laptops? This page was really designed for projection on a whiteboard but if you really want the students to have access to it here is a concise URL for a version of this page without the comments: Transum.org/go/?Start=April1 However it would be better to assign one of the student interactive activities below. |
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Here is the URL which will take them to a related student activity.
Chapter 1 of Raymond Smullyan’s book, What is the Name of the Book, begins with the following:
My introduction to logic was at the age of six. It happened this way: On April 1, 1925, I was sick in bed with grippe, or flu, or something. In the morning my brother Emile (ten years my senior) came into my bedroom and said: "Well, Raymond, today is April Fool's Day, and I will fool you as you have never been fooled before!" I waited all day long for him to fool me, but he didn't. Late that night, my mother asked me, "Why don't you go to sleep?" I replied, 'I'm waiting for Emile to fool me." My mother turned to Emile and said, "Emile, will you please fool the child!" Emile then turned to me, and the following dialogue ensued:
Emile: So, you expected me to fool you, didn't you?
Raymond: Yes.
Emile: But I didn't, did I?
Raymond: No.
Emile: But you expected me to, didn't you?
Raymond: Yes.
Emile: So I fooled you, didn't I!
Well, I recall lying in bed long after the lights were turned out wondering whether or not I had really been fooled. On the one hand, if I wasn't fooled, then I did not get what I expected, hence I was fooled. (This was Emile's argument.)
But with equal reason it can be said that if I was fooled, then I did get what I expected, so then, in what sense was I fooled. So, was I fooled or wasn't I?
This is an example of a paradox.