My story in today’s paper: New state exam to get a test run.

It’s not online, but the story ran with a little math quiz showing sample questions from each of the four standardized tests Texas has had over the last two decades (the tongue-twister TABS, TEAMS, TAAS, and TAKS). The tests have gotten harder over time, and the increasing difficulty of the questions illustrates the point. The downside, unfortunately, is that all morning I’ve been taking calls from people who claim we got #4 wrong. (Trust me: we didn’t.) The question:

The student council sponsor is planning to make a circle graph showing the number of votes for each of the candidates for student council president. The table below indicates the name and vote count for each candidate.

Bridget - 240

Hakeem - 420

Maria - 180

Viera - 300

Tony - 60

What central angle should the sponsor use for the section representing the votes for the student who finished in third place?

A. 54 degrees

B. 72 degrees

C. 90 degrees

D. 126 degrees

Your answer? (No cheating by looking in today’s paper.)

22 April 2002

Comments

22 April | 11:07 | wojtek

sum of all votes: 1200 ==> 0.3� per vote.

3rd place: 240 votes = 72 degrees (B).

this is a disgrace;-)

22 April | 11:33 | Jako

Thanks to and extensive education in maths and science (Aerospace engineering is the perfect degree for a web developer, yes?), I know that:

240/1200 = X/360

A little common denominator action plus some easy division reveals x = 72.

22 April | 11:44 | Jeremy

um, blue?

22 April | 12:12 | Julie

I solved it the same way Jako did. 72 degrees.

22 April | 12:21 | Tam

Turnips.

22 April | 12:21 | Tam

Turnips.

22 April | 13:19 | josh

Very good! I always knew crabwalk.com had the smartest readers of any weblog.

Most of the people who complain the answer's not 72 degrees thought someone other than Bridget finished in third place. (Like "Nader," for instance.)

22 April | 17:31 | Abby

72, baby. Thank God for cross-multiplication.

22 April | 20:53 | Jeff

My biggest problem with the math questions on standardized tests was that I'd get confused simply reading and trying to understand the word problems. Yet, I always scored high on the verbal/reading portion of the test.

It's an enigma.

23 April | 8:58 | vis10n

No fair... I got 72, also... but now no one will believe me. They'll think I cheated.

23 April | 19:33 | Megan

72, that was easy enough. Less easy was figuring out how much my roommates owe for rent, since those sharing a room pay less, and I haven't taken a math class in two years.

30 April | 17:49 | jenden

Well...126 degrees is too hot, as is 90 degrees. And 54 degrees is too cold, so I'd have to say 72 degrees is just right!

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Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)