this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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~~it's~~
~~a badly~~
~~written~~
~~math~~
~~problem~~
Seriously, every time this comes up and everyone makes a huge deal out of it, I keep thinking, "none of the people writing these better be teachers." You have to be more clear than this.
Edit: ok, not so much this one. I just read the words and assumed the math problem was one of the ambiguous ones. Stand down, soldiers.
no
it's
fucking
not
This is just basic algebra, this is actually how the problems in algebra I are written. What the fuck?
Whoa, you went from 0 to 100 on rage super quick. You ok buddy?
I'm great, thanks for asking. I had just woken up and I haven't been sleeping much lately. It's very possible that what I percieved as a perfectly normal way to state that I was taken aback that you could say that about this math problem, came across to you instead as an assault. Please know that wasn't my intention, and I regret the way I phrased that. Thank you for your concern.
Just fucking read the content before you comment next time, okay pal? ๐
Well and truly noted. I was unaware until I got called out on it, so the whole experience has made me wonder how often I do that sort of thing without realizing it.
Pretty hypocritical on my part, since I'm usually on team hey-actually-read-it-before-you-comment.
Not this one, there is no ambiguity here. Order of operations are all good.
You're right. I honestly just assumed it was one of those intentionally engagement-baiting posts when I saw it and didn't even process the problem itself.
Yea that is true but a lot of these questions use the division sign when they should just use a fraction and everything would have been easy to understand. If i see the devision sign and there are more than 2 elements like x=aรทb+5 i cry because if they just used x=a/(b+5) or x=a/b +5 it is just visible no ambiguity. (a/b as in a over b, idk how to do fractions on the phone if you know tell me!)
how should it have been written?
Nope, you're right. I just read the words and assumed it was one of the terrible ones.
This one is just...math.
I think it's reasonable if you consider the kind of physical situation it might represent.
You visit a farm and there are 2 unpackaged apples. There are also 5 packages that hold 8 apples but 5 have been removed from each. How many apples are there?
In fairness, this one isn't nearly as bad as most of the ambiguous problems that get passed around on Facebook with multiple parentheticals and such.
Your word problem is excellent.