You're right, nobody did say that. The point I was trying to make is that with the absence of data, you have to make assumptions and they should be clearly defined. My assumptions defined his starting age and how he obtained the first 2 sheep and the fact they were his.
I guess I would want my kids too look at any math problem with the following things in mind:
* identify units of measurement
* identify useful data
* identify non-useful data
* identify assumptions needed to complete answer
There are more or different assumptions I could make, such as cooperative breeding amoungst other breeders or a larger flock to start with, or a completely different model of breeding sheep. I could have described a scenario where he started with 2 sheep and went through several trading and auction rounds until he had 125 with some bonus dogs like the guy that got a house from a paper clip.
We don't have a time measurement in years, so we need some type of sheep per time or time per sheep unit. I choose an assumption of breeding and came up with about 1 sheep per year per sheep.
The original question is very close to a nonsense question, which requires so many assumptions that probably most answers can be well defended with the right set of assumptions. But at the very least you would hope a student could identify an answer in years could not be obtained with the given data of # of sheep and # of dogs.
(And, no, I don't think the units method is beyond an eight grader, even if the educational system thinks it is. The fermi problem may be.)
I guess I would want my kids too look at any math problem with the following things in mind: * identify units of measurement * identify useful data * identify non-useful data * identify assumptions needed to complete answer
There are more or different assumptions I could make, such as cooperative breeding amoungst other breeders or a larger flock to start with, or a completely different model of breeding sheep. I could have described a scenario where he started with 2 sheep and went through several trading and auction rounds until he had 125 with some bonus dogs like the guy that got a house from a paper clip.
We don't have a time measurement in years, so we need some type of sheep per time or time per sheep unit. I choose an assumption of breeding and came up with about 1 sheep per year per sheep.
The original question is very close to a nonsense question, which requires so many assumptions that probably most answers can be well defended with the right set of assumptions. But at the very least you would hope a student could identify an answer in years could not be obtained with the given data of # of sheep and # of dogs.
(And, no, I don't think the units method is beyond an eight grader, even if the educational system thinks it is. The fermi problem may be.)