Fantasy Football Cafe Forum

by **Mercer Boy** » Tue May 24, 2005 6:32 am

This is what happens when you let a woman named "Mildred" write up a test question about football. :-B

AP via Yahoo! News wrote:RALEIGH, N.C. - The state's test writers tried to come up with a math question about football and ended up with a fumble.

On an end-of-grade test this month, seventh-graders had to calculate the average gain for a team on the game's first six plays. But the team did not gain 10 yards on the first four plays and would have lost possession before a fifth and sixth play.

The team opened with a 6-yard loss, a 3-yard gain and a 2-yard loss, which would have made it fourth down with 15 yards to go for a first down. The team's fourth play was just a 7-yard gain, yet it maintained possession for a 12-yard gain and a 4-yard gain on two additional plays.

"Whoever wrote it didn't think it through," said Gene Daniels, athletics director of Salem Middle School in Apex.

Mildred Bazemore, chief of the state Department of Public Instruction's test development section, said the question makes sense mathematically and was reviewed thoroughly.

"It has nothing to do with football," Bazemore said. "It has to do with the mathematical concepts that you're studying."

by **SwiperNoSwiping** » Tue May 24, 2005 7:04 am

Mercer Boy wrote:"It has nothing to do with football,"

That is the funniest part. It has everything to do with football. It was a football scenario. If it was strictly a mathematical scenario, then just ask whats the average of the numbers or whatever. Haha. :-)

by **disgruntledjetsfan** » Tue May 24, 2005 7:33 am

Figures something like this would happen in my home city :-D

People around here are more college basketball people than football people...

by **SwiperNoSwiping** » Tue May 24, 2005 7:45 am

disgruntledjetsfan wrote:Figures something like this would happen in my home city

People around here are more college basketball people than football people...

I was wondering why they didn't make it a scoring average type question when I read this too...Guess they wanted to make it tricky! It might have really been tough if they made it a hockey question. That 4th period may have thrown a lot of kids off. :-)

by **maddog60** » Tue May 24, 2005 9:51 am

Man, you know some kids are furious that the oblivous director probably marked wrong everyone with common sense who wrote "There was a turn over on downs after 4th down, therefore they didn't have a 5th and 6th play" or something like that.

by **DUKE** » Tue May 24, 2005 10:12 am

I would've been the smart-assed kid who called it out and said it was flawed :-D

by **Goatwhacker** » Tue May 24, 2005 12:11 pm

Mercer Boy wrote:
"It has nothing to do with football," Bazemore said. "It has to do with the mathematical concepts that you're studying."

What a stupid comment. The point of having story problems is to show application of math to the real world. The story problem therefore has to make sense, which this one does not.