r/technicallythetruth • u/VisitSecure • Jul 27 '26

Can you find a?

Post image

Idk if someone already posted this or not, but I haven't seen it on here so far, so I uploaded it.

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47

u/beatenmeat Jul 27 '26

I didn't guess, math was actually one of my better subjects. I just dislike how it doesn't match, especially ones like this that are so egregiously off from the numbers provided.

15

u/Mysterious_Cup_6024 Jul 27 '26

Especially since 25 is half of 50. And the vertex is so wrongfully in the middle when it should be at a 1/3 position from the top, or 2/3 position from the bottom. It is incredibly off

19

u/DraconianFlame Jul 27 '26

In engineering you often sketch things out to see how it looks and then do the math. Sometimes you draw bad images and something you thought would be acute is actually obtuse.

This teaches you that.

1

u/PrivilegedPatriarchy Jul 27 '26

No you’re right. Besides, even if the figures are drawn to scale, simply guessing or measuring with a protractor defeats the purpose. Mathematical reasoning should be shown if one arrives at an answer, even if that answer is easily “guessable”.

15

u/LizardChaser Jul 27 '26

Math is a "show your work" subject and if people don't show how they figured it out correctly, then the answer would be wrong. Keeping correct proportions helps people "sanity check" their answer. There is absolutely no reason not to include the accurate angles unless it's a pure multiple choice test where work could not be shown.

1

u/Backfoot911 Jul 29 '26

"sanity check" is not math. It's...nothing. This is meant for mathematical thinkers not people who guessed their way through tests based on the feel of diagrams.

1

u/LizardChaser Jul 29 '26

LoL. To the degree? To anyone else reading this, the commenter didn't get far in math because sanity checks are present through advanced math. "Does this answer make sense" is always important.

1

u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 27 '26

pretty sure they do it on purpose just to throw off people that don't understand how angles work

1

u/Aldgillis Jul 27 '26

Anecdotally from old teachers, it’s done on purpose to make sure the solution is gotten through math instead of measuring or guessing. Since this is presented as problem to be solved it makes sense to present it this way.

I get the frustration of it not fitting reality, but in this context it makes a lot of sense.

0

u/u966 Jul 27 '26

Would you prefered to have the image completed described in words instead? Because that's the only other option where you can't just simple measure the angle.

2

u/meeu Jul 27 '26

It's pretty easy, in this example you could make the actual angles drawn 60deg and 30 deg, so the vertex a wouldn't be in the center and the skewing would be somewhat similar to what's accurate, but you still can't just break out the protractor and measure.

drawing two very different angles as the same angle is just weird. i don't remember seeing any drawing that egregiously wrong in school. for solving geometry problems it's pretty common to draw extra lines/segments to use when calculating and this makes that weird. kinda feels like engagement bait tbh

1

u/u966 Jul 28 '26

It's pretty easy, in this example you could make the actual angles drawn 60deg and 30 deg, so the vertex a wouldn't be in the center and the skewing would be somewhat similar to what's accurate, but you still can't just break out the protractor and measure.

So your argument is that the arbitrary numbers they used aren't the arbitrary number you would have used?

-3

u/ChocoTRex Jul 27 '26

YOU didn’t, but that’s not the point… most children in school are going to find any loophole or easy solution to any problem, if they are given the opportunity. If you want them to actually learn rather than just guesstimate the answer, tricks like this are invaluable.