About the POTWs

Note: What you are about to read is a discussion between two people: Me and myself, if that counts as two people.



I have a question--a question for myself.

Why are there suddenly only three people that have answered the POTW when before, there have been well over ten?

Ok, Tony, settle down. Breathe deeply. It's just another math question. No, it's not. I have to think...

One reason is that many people got it wrong--to be precise, four.

Another reason is that it is getting less popular. Everything has a spark when it has just started. Perhaps I need to tell more people about this.

Hmmmmm... come on Tony, think more. It's just like a math problem.

Everyone know that...-- no, that's not it.

Well, I guess I have to think more about this and do--oh, oh, I got it!!!!!


People aren't doing it because it's not getting them anywhere. There is no reward (well, there actually is, but it really isn't anything)! Yeah, that's it. People these days don't do math for fun--well, there is an exception. But "average" people.
Okay, I guess that's true, but I can't do anything about that.

Rats! I guess I'll just have to live with the fact that only a couple people do the POTW.

No More Math Homework

Before you start reading the real post, just know that the title is misleading. There is still math homework!


My life has been going on well. But, oh yeah, did I forget to tell you that I won't be posting any more math homework? Yeah, I was going to put this post a really long time ago, but I kept forgetting, so I'm telling you now. It's just a little late. There are many reasons why I am not going to post math homework any more.

1. It takes too much time and effort to type up all the homework when I can just easily do it by hand
2. We are not doing work in the book as much, which makes it hard to do homework beforehand when I have time.
3. I believe Mr. Rosenthal knows a little about it. I don't know how though. (If you do, please tell me.)

I know that it's not that bad anyway. I know that a few of you did copy the answers at some point, but most of you just used it to check your answers. Either way, I'm sorry for all the change it has caused you in your life. Please forgive me.

Once again, please be sure that you are not confused. There is still math homework! I'm just not posting it on my blog anymore.

The Mentoes and Diet Coke Experiment II

Field Trip #1

Today we had our first field trip out of the three that we are having in December. Since I am in group 2, we went to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. It was a lot more fun than I had thought. My favorite part was probably when we did the Economical Playground. It was a game where you had to make money by buying stock or increasing your company's efficiency. After three rounds, I got $902,000. The winner was a college person from Harvard, who got $1,055,000. To my information, Tomer got the most money, with $1,033,000. The rest was a little boring. There was a video about banking that we watching afterward. It was totally boring and no one could understand it. Even the college people! I guess that's all. Out next trip is to the Museum.

Last Day of November

Today is the last day of November. A lot of things are good because of this. First of all, I'd like to mention that since today is November 30 and there is no 31st of November, it means that tomorrow is December 1, the first day of December and the day of Green Team's field trip. My group, Group 2, is going to the Federal Reserve, which is a bank. It may sound a little tedious, but I think it's going to be an okay trip. There are many reasons for me to say so.

1. There is math involved.
2. Mr. Yellen has said that it is supposed to be fun, I don't know.
3. Mrs. Batchelder said that there were going to be gifts.
4. It skips most of school (we're still having C Block).
5. There is even more math involved.
6. Ditto the first reason.

This month, I have posted 32 posts, including this one. That means that I have posted more posts than the number of days, 30. I must have done a lot of work! I can't believe that I managed to do that and do all my school work and do all the chinese school homework and practice the piano every night and do math team and winter running and do orchestra and do band and study latin! That's just like impossible! But it is, I've done it...

Skipping Math

Yay! I just missed (not skipped like it says in the title) a math class. Well, I also missed Spanish, but that's not the real point of importance here. There was a test in math class. Since I was going to miss it, I took it in the morning before school started. I only had about 15 minutes, but that's basically how long it took me to take the test. It was a loooooooot easier than I thought. I just have to finish checking the test later.

I had to swear that I wouldn't tell anyone what was on the test or how hard it was. But somehow, everyone seems to know that I took the test early. I'm still wondering how they found out. Please tell me if you know! So many people came up to me and asked if the test was hard, and I either said, "I'm not allowed to tell" or "I don't know, you find out yourself when you take it." (This message is especially for you Tyler, Linnea, Alex (maybe, I forgot), Seong-Tae, David (a.k.a. Jimmie), and a countless number of other people that I didn't mention.

Math is a lot easier subject than most people think it is. It only has one answer for every question. (Well, there are some exceptions, for example, quadratic equations usually have two answers, but that's beyond the point and you'll probably learn that in ninth or tenth grade.) I'll bet you anything that if I tutored any of you in my class for two weeks, you could be as good as me! I'm serious!



By the way, it's not too late to answer the POTW question. Only two people have gotten it correct. About three other people all did it wrong. I was very surprised.

Create Account

There is now the ability to have your own private account on my blog. There is a login screen in the toolbar that you can log in to. If you are new and would like to create an account, just follow the instructions beneath the Login screen. This is a very complicated software that uses Javascript and HTML. Note that capitalization does not matter. Also, please give credit to Google Docs and Spreasheets for offering the seperate web pages. It is a very simple precess and only takes five minutes of your time. This a a very new thing, so please excuse any errors in the program.

POTW #4

The entire figure at the above is a right triangle. Angles ABC and BDA are right angles. Lines BA is 15 units and line BC is 20 units. Find, if possible, the lengths of l and m. If you think it is impossible, then explain why it is so.

Email all answer to twang7888@yahoo.com.

Difficulty level: 3

Source: Totally original, so forget about finding the answer on the web, but there's always the possibility that someone else has coincidencially posted it on the web.

About POTW Scoring

A various number of people have asked me about how the POTW points are scored. It is very simple, but seems complex. Here is the starting list:

First place: 5
Second place: 4
Third place: 3
Fourth place: 2
Fifth place: 1

Then, you take that number and you multiply by the difficulty level. So if a POTW question has a difficulty level of 4, then first place would be worth 20, second place, 16, third, 12, etc. FYI, the difficulty level is at the end of every POTW.


NOTE: THIS SCORE GUIDE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND YOU WILL BE INFORMED WHEN IT IS DONE SO. AFTER THIS PARTICULAR POTW ROUND IS OVER, (every POTW round is five questions) THE POINT VALUE WILL CHANGE BECAUSE I HAVE NOTICED THAT THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO DON'T GET POINTS BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ENOUGH PLACES FOR THEM.

Announcement Banner

There is a new Announcement Banner in the toolbar. It is the very first thing. It says all the current announcements. I thought of this because people keep asking me when the next POTW is coming out. Just to inform you, POTWs come out on Tuesdays, exceptions may be made and it will say so on the new Announcements Banner. One thing that I really like about it is that it scrolls over, so it attracts attention. That is important! I noticed that even after it has been posted, people have left comments saying "When is the next POTW coming?" Well, now you know. Check the announcements!

Miniclip Games

Below is the Twangsite Miniclip Game Room. It's really cool, and I found out how to post it onto my blog. This Game Room will be updated weekly. After a while, this post will be pushed downward on my blog because I will have many new posts that will be above it. I have taken this into consideration and put this on the toolbar to the right of this post. You can also put this onto your blog by clicking here. However, it will appear too big for your blog because the window isn't large enough (there might be an exception as Blogger now allows templates that are stretched). I have solved this problem myself very easily. However, you may have a more difficult time shrinking the image because chances are that you don't know HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). You can email me and I will email you the the revised HTML text and then you can post it onto your blog as well. My email is twang7888@yahoo.com. Anyway, here is the Twangsite Miniclip Game Room:

POTW #3 Answer and Explanation

The problem is actually a lot easier than you think, you just need the right way to look at it. Notice that the triangle's hypotenuses (is that the plural for hypotenuse?) have different slopes. In the original picture, the slope of the upper triangle is steeper than the lower one. Because of this, the hypotenuse bends slightly inward, making the area smaller than it appears. In the rearranged triangle, the the triangles switch, so the lower triangle is the one with the steeper slope and the upper one has the more level slope. This makes the hypotenuse slightly outward, which makes the area of the area of the triangle slightly larger than it seems. Since the rearranged triangle is exactly one unit bigger than the original triangle. Therefore, there is a hole of one unit!


By the way, the source of this puzzle was Exidor's Logic Puzzle Place, but you will probably find it in many, many other places too.

1000 Hits

I have recently discovered some good news. My blog has been visited 1000 times! It happened yesterday on Thanksgiving. You can see for yourself on my web counter on the very bottom of the toolbar. It probably has a little more now because other people have already added on the the number of hits there are.

Funny Math

Here are some funny math pictures you an look at during Thanksgiving. I didn't make these up.

Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving! School just got out and I just got home from taking the bus. I have a party tomorrow and another one on Saturday. Tomorrow's party is going to be better because it has one of my friends, and Saturday's party is going to be my parents' friends. We get four days off of school. During this time, I'm definitely going to finish my the English Short Story Writing Assignment. That's all for now!!!

POTW #3

As you can see, the top figure is split into four parts. The bottom figure uses the same four pieces, but has a hole in the middle. How can this be possible?

(Note: You can click on the images to get an enlarged view.)

Email all answer to twang7888@yahoo.com

Difficulty Level: 4

Source: Not actually original, but I'll tell you the source on the answers...

Chapter 3 Science Homework

Part of the Chapter 3 science homework is now available my blog. Click here to view it now. It is now totally complete.

This was brought to you by Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

5-Star Practice Test

I'm making a 5-star practice test for the math class. It's actaully turning out to be really fun. I'm currently in the process of typing the questions and making sure I didn't make any stupid errors or mistakes. I was thinking of posting it onto my blog, but then I remembered that equations can't be displayed on Blogger. It would be too complicated to use HTML for it (I'm not even sure you can do that), so I'm just not going to bother. If your in my Accelerated Math Class, then you can see it. This is probably my first real blog entry in a while. When I say "real," I mean something about my life, not math homework answers or POTWs.

POTW #2 Answer and Explanation

This problem involves compound interest. In order to solve this problem, you would have to understand some vocabulary. When something is "compounded", it means that the interest is added on to it. For example, if something was compouded monthly at a rate of 5%, then you would add 5% every month. Also, "compounded triyearly" means that it would be compounded three times per year, so about every four months. You would also have to know the form of an exponential equation, a*b^x, where a is the starting number (in this case, 1000), b is the growth or decay rate, and x is the number of times it is compounded.

To start, you would have to write an expression for each of the three different interest plans:
1. 1000*1.012
2. 1000*1.001^12
3. 1000*1.0035^3

Then, just solve each of the equations and see which one is bigger:
1. $1012
2. $1012.07
3. $1010.54

According to the work, John should pick choice two for his interest plan for his bank account. This would give him the most money, $0.07 more than the first choice. Every penny counts!

November 15 Math Homework

Here's the November 15 Math Homework.

Again, it's thanks to Google Docs and Spreadsheets that it's here.

November 14 Math Homework

Here's the math homework for today.

Again, curtesy to Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

Science Homework Posts

Math homwork is easy to post because they are usually in the book, so I have to write them up anyway. Now, our science teacher has given us work to do from the book. So I might as well post it to my blog. I will probably do this every time unless the homework is not from the book. Social Studies and English could be coming soon, but I doubt English would work, because we hardly get any homework anyway!

POTW #2

John has $1000 and he decides to start a bank account. The bank offers three different types of deals for interest rates. They are listed below:

1. An interest rate of 1.2% compounded yearly

2. An interest rate of 0.1% compounded monthly

3. An interest rate of 0.35% compounded triyearly

Which deal should John pick if he stores the money in the bank for one year and wants to get the most money?

Note: Every penny counts!!!!

Solved the problem? Then email it to twang7888@yahoo.com.

Click here for more information about problem of the weeks such as grading criteria, answering, etc.

Difficulty level: 3 (out of 5)



Source: Original, but the idea of compounding money was taken from math class about two weeks ago.

POTW #1 Answer and Explanation

Since the POTW is closed, I decided to give the answer now because anyone else that finishes the problem will not deserve any credit, only the first five do (This time, first six because Tyler E. was an exception). I know it has only been about 3 days, but so what?



The perimeter of the rectangle would be 56 inches. The length was 16 inches and the width was 12 inches. There were many ways to do this, but the easiest would be to use algebra. However, you would have to know how to simplify quadratic equations, which average eighth graders wouldn't know. Here's a step-by-step process of solving this question the algebraic way.

First, you would get the equation:
x(x+4)=192 where x stands for the width

Distribute the x:
x^2+4x=192

Make the equation equal 0:
x^2+4x-192=0

Simplify the quadratic equation: (Note: if you do not know how to do this, then you couldn't have solved this question the algebraic way)
(x-12)(x+16)=0

Solve for x: (Note: There are usually two answers for a quadratic equation)
x=12 or -16

Use your logic, the width couldn't be a negative number, so the width would be 12.
Now, if the width was 12, the the length would be four more, or 16. Thus the perimeter would be 12+12+16+16=56

(Note: please be sure to find out what the question is asking for. A few people gave me 12 and 16, which were the dimensions of the rectangle. However, the problem asked for the perimeter. I did not take off for this error because this was the first POTW (Tyler E. is an exception). I will take off 2 points in the future though.)


Any questions or comments? Post a comment or email me at twang7888@yahoo.com.

POTW Leader Board

The Problem of the Week Leader Board is in the toolbar to the right
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