VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of parents complain that the math questions designed for primary school students tend to be more and more unnecessarily difficult.

Thanh Van, a parent in Dong Da district in Hanoi, said she has been “over head and ears in work” these days. She not only has to meet and see off the son to school, but also has to stay late at night to do the homework with him.

The boy, a fifth grader, some days ago complained with his mother that he could not solve a math question given by his teacher: “Please count quickly 9/1x4+9/4x7+9/7x10....+9/97x100.”

As the boy gave up, Van and her husband tried to solve the question for the child.

“My husband tried to explain to him how to solve the question, but he could not understand. The question was too complicated, while the child did not have enough knowledge to deal with such a difficult problem,” Van said.

Van and her husband spent hours discussing how to explain to the son and only went to bed at midnight, but could not find the answer.  

Pham Thanh, a parent in Ba Dinh district in Hanoi, said that he “lost his mind” because of the math question given to his son, a second grader. “Please find the two natural consecutive numbers, if the sum of the numbers is 8.”

“I could not solve it. I tried to write down on the paper the numbers 8 = 0 + 8 = 1 + 7 = 2 + 6 = 3+ 5 = 4 + 4, but none can meet the requirement,” he complained.

“I don’t want to solve questions for the child. I wish to see him solve his problems himself. However, I think the questions are too difficult for him and primary school students,” he added.

Most of the parents complain that the math questions are too difficult for primary school students, and though they can find the answers, they cannot explain to the children, the students with limited knowledge, how to solve them.

A lot of parents have “shouted for help” on education forums. They post the contents of the math questions on the forums and ask for help. Especially, some topics have been set up with an aim to gather the parents who help each other to solve the questions designed for primary school students.

“The teacher has some candies. If she gives two candies to every member of the class, she would have 17 candies left. If she gives five candies to every member of the class, she would lack four candies. How many candies does the teacher have?”

This was one of the intricate questions posted by a parent, whose child is a third grader. The problem was that students need to solve the question arithmetically, while parents can only solve the question by setting and solving equation.

Here is another question for fourth graders: “My school’s library has two compartments. The amount of books on the first compartment is equal to 2/3 of the amount of books kept on the second one. If putting 80 more books into the first compartment and 40 into the second, the amount of books in the first compartment would be equal to ¾ of the amount of books on the second compartment. How many books are there on each of compartments?”

Chi Mai