[Guest]

I what was probably the most frustrating experience of my life, I sat through a computerized tech school placement exam to find at one of the last problems, the equation below. I got it right with only a slight guess, but of the four answers possible there are two that I would accept as correct if there is proper justification given. I will elaborate later, but here is the question:

try it like that, because it is all the information I had. I asked for clarification but the proctor may have needed a visit to the proctologist to remove whatver it was she had up her butt. She wouldn't even acknowledge the question. If you can't get it...

this is not a simple plug in the answer question and the formula is not set equal to anything for you to balance. The selections (ABCD) are what the formula would equate to.

the reason the question looked like this is because it was loaded on a computer that did not recognize a symbol in the formula so it was replaced with the squares. The squares represent symbols (i.e. +, >... they could be any symbol but they are all the same one)

[Guest]

But... I don't even understand what is wanted here!! :S

[Guest]

- ( 2 - 3 ) - ( - 2 - 3 ) = 6

Which means "D"

[Guest]

I responded in your spoiler

- ( 2 - 3 ) - ( - 2 - 3 ) = 6

Which means "D"

-(2-3)-(-2-3)= 4, not 6, so it would be "C", but good job otherwise.

I did try that and that is one of the acceptable solutions. Good job thinking outside the box. There is one other symbol that can go there and it was the correct answer. There is no way you could know this, but several times earlier in the test the parenthesis had displayed fine so I deduced it was most lkely the other symbol.

Edited June 13, 2009 by kawnsentrait

[Guest]

I responded in your spoiler

"(" is not the same as ")". How about using...

"|" which is the absolute value symbol.

Then

-|2-3|-|-2-3|=-|-1|-|-5|=-1-5=-6, or A

[Guest]

- ( 2 - 3 ) - ( - 2 - 3 ) = 6

Which means "D"

is also technically incorrect inasmuch as hint two specifies that the four missing symbols are all the same. Right and left parenthesis are not.

[Guest]

-(2-3)-(-2-3)= 4, not 6, so it would be "C", but good job otherwise.

How do your get 4 using parenthesis? Every single way I have done it or entered in into a calculator or software says -(2-3)-(-2-3)=6. Doing what is in the parenthesis 1st gives us -(-1)-(-5)=6. Distributing the implied -1 outside of the parenthesis gives us (-1)(2-3)+(-1)(-2-3) = -2 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 3 + 3 = 6. So not sure how you can get 4 using parenthesis. Please explain.

[Guest]

I what was probably the most frustrating experience of my life, I sat through a computerized tech school placement exam to find at one of the last problems, the equation below. I got it right with only a slight guess, but of the four answers possible there are two that I would accept as correct if there is proper justification given. I will elaborate later, but here is the question:

try it like that, because it is all the information I had. I asked for clarification but the proctor may have needed a visit to the proctologist to remove whatver it was she had up her butt. She wouldn't even acknowledge the question. If you can't get it...

this is not a simple plug in the answer question and the formula is not set equal to anything for you to balance. The selections (ABCD) are what the formula would equate to.

the reason the question looked like this is because it was loaded on a computer that did not recognize a symbol in the formula so it was replaced with the squares. The squares represent symbols (i.e. +, >... they could be any symbol but they are all the same one)

The squares represent where there should be parenthesis in the equation and the proper answer is D:6

[Guest]

How do your get 4 using parenthesis? Every single way I have done it or entered in into a calculator or software says -(2-3)-(-2-3)=6. Doing what is in the parenthesis 1st gives us -(-1)-(-5)=6. Distributing the implied -1 outside of the parenthesis gives us (-1)(2-3)+(-1)(-2-3) = -2 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 3 + 3 = 6. So not sure how you can get 4 using parenthesis. Please explain.

I get 6 as well. -(-1) = +1 and -(-5) = +5, combining the two results in positive 6.

Eiher way this seems to work, but I think kwilson is right in using | (absolute value) as that would be more accurate based on the rule that the symbols are "all the same one."

Edited June 13, 2009 by Panny

[Guest]

sorry, my math on he "C" was off, I forgot to double negative the 1. As far as your responses that right parentheses are not the same as left parentheses, you are getting pretty nit-picky, a parentheses is a parenthesis. That being said, the absolute value symbol is the correct answer.

Remember, I did not make up this problem myself I just came up with rules to make i easier for all of you. All I got was the part in the picture and the knowledge of what had already been on the test. I got it right with the absolute value symbols making the logical leap tht the squares, since not recognized mathematical symbols, must have been a display error and I deduced it must therefore be parentheses or absolute value symbols, hence the two correct answers would be the 6 or -6, A or D. I feel I got rather lucky figuring it out with the information given to me, but figured it would make a decent math riddle.

Sorry again for my bad math correction but I still do not yield that parentheses are different symbols, even if they face oposite directions the meaning does not change.

[Guest]

sorry, my math on he "C" was off, I forgot to double negative the 1. As far as your responses that right parentheses are not the same as left parentheses, you are getting pretty nit-picky, a parentheses is a parenthesis. That being said, the absolute value symbol is the correct answer.

Remember, I did not make up this problem myself I just came up with rules to make i easier for all of you. All I got was the part in the picture and the knowledge of what had already been on the test. I got it right with the absolute value symbols making the logical leap tht the squares, since not recognized mathematical symbols, must have been a display error and I deduced it must therefore be parentheses or absolute value symbols, hence the two correct answers would be the 6 or -6, A or D. I feel I got rather lucky figuring it out with the information given to me, but figured it would make a decent math riddle.

Sorry again for my bad math correction but I still do not yield that parentheses are different symbols, even if they face oposite directions the meaning does not change.

While mathematically, left or right closing parentheses may not be very different, to a computer they are two very different things and are recognized as different symbols. Since you told us that the computer replaced the same symbol with the square, parentheses would not fit that condition. That being said, if a computer could not recognize opening parentheses then it probably would not recognize closing parentheses and would probably represent them using the same square symbol. But since you told us that it was the same symbol, technically parentheses do not work.

[Guest]

sorry, my math on he "C" was off, I forgot to double negative the 1. As far as your responses that right parentheses are not the same as left parentheses, you are getting pretty nit-picky, a parentheses is a parenthesis. That being said, the absolute value symbol is the correct answer.

Remember, I did not make up this problem myself I just came up with rules to make i easier for all of you. All I got was the part in the picture and the knowledge of what had already been on the test. I got it right with the absolute value symbols making the logical leap tht the squares, since not recognized mathematical symbols, must have been a display error and I deduced it must therefore be parentheses or absolute value symbols, hence the two correct answers would be the 6 or -6, A or D. I feel I got rather lucky figuring it out with the information given to me, but figured it would make a decent math riddle.

Sorry again for my bad math correction but I still do not yield that parentheses are different symbols, even if they face oposite directions the meaning does not change.

Actually, to encode each parenthese a differant code is used, so to a computer, they are actually two differant symbols.

[Guest]

i figured that simple logic would lead you to believe that the answer is -6 b/c you start with a negative number and only subtract positive #s so the # must be -6

im not sure that this is correct though.

Edited June 13, 2009 by leetmonke

[Guest]

also i just noticed that if you plug in the # -6 into the equation then the answer will be -6

[Guest]

also i just noticed that if you plug in the # -6 into the equation then the answer will be -6

Not sure where you got that.

[Guest]

As far as your responses that right parentheses are not the same as left parentheses, you are getting pretty nit-picky, a parentheses is a parenthesis.

I continue to maintain the difference between a left parenthesis and a right. If they were identical they would also be interchangeable. If this were true, the following equation would make sense:

(a+b(*(c+d(=y

And, in my never-ending crusade of nit-picky-ness, let me add that we may have one parenthesis, or many parentheses.

[Guest]

May be its modulus (absolute value)

- l2-3l - l-2-3l = -1-5 = -6