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95% Students Make the Same Top 08 Math Mistakes

Brain Station

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Basic math skills question, order of operations, pemdas, number operations, fractions

MIDDLE & HIGH SCHOOL MATH | Top 10 Math Mistakes | HOMESCHOOL MATH | COLLEGE MATH | TEST PREP MATH | Math Olympiad | Oxford University Entrance Exam | Harvard University Entrance Exam | Only 1% of Students Got this Math Question Correct | You should know this trick

20 Comments

@stevetriviaify 5 months ago

Properly worded, it should be divide 20 by "one-half".

@Boognish64 1 month ago

Amazing! I haven't made a single one of these math mistakes in 23 years since my last math class! Exponentially Happier now the more years I put between teachers and myself.

@edsherrod5216 4 months ago

And it is examples like these that makes me hate math because it is problems like these that never fail to make it on to every math test.

@joshedison3492 5 months ago

It takes 4 cuts to get 5 pieces so each cut takes 2 mins. Similarly it takes 9 cuts to get 10 pieces so 2 x 9 = 18 mins

@ascorbichealthy 5 months ago (edited)

Shouldn't the first mistake should be a error in the question itself?

Shouldn't the question be
"Divide 20 by A half and add 8"
Not
"Divide 20 by half and add 8'

Edit: Chill Guys I was just genuinely wondering

@TheStartOfTheTC 5 months ago

A coin has around a 49.99% chance of landing on heads and around a 49.99% chance of landing on tails. The remaining 0.02% is for the side.

@XDXROD_GD 5 months ago

How to avoid these Mistakes:
#1: Dividing by a half is multiplying by 2.
#2: A coin Flip always have a 50% chance of Heads or Tails.
#3: Multiply everything in the brackets, not just single terms.
#4 Add then square root, not split then adding the square roots.
#5: The word from means have to do in the opposite order.
#6: n pieces needs (n - 1) cuts.
#7: you can't split a fraction if there is more than 1 term in the denominator.
#8: Remember your conversion rules.

@jonahansen 1 month ago

I think the first one, the error in parsing is the difference between "Divide 20 by half" vs "Divide 20 in half".

@rajendrakumaar3800 5 months ago

Now he has 5 logs. To get ten logs, each log will have to be divided into two. For which another 10 minutes will be required.

@ChakaYukisan 5 months ago

Additional to mistake#2 I remember my statistics professor, who insisted on the exact number of 1:1 in probability, flipped the coin which surprisingly stood firm at it´s side. So won´t we forget there exists a 3rd possibility.

@Thomas-it9ls 5 months ago

The question on the thumbnail is savage, It's an interpertation problem. The phrase "Divide x by half" seems like you want to slice in half, not double it.

@LarsV62 5 months ago

One problem not mentioned here is the difference between "divide by" and "divide into". Many might think they are the same, but they are opposites.

@Tushar-j1s3p 5 months ago

thanks ! this video helped me learn so many new concepts and rectify my mistakes

@2strive4better 5 months ago

The wood question could be much more clearly stated as: Tom has a good work bench and vice and takes 2 mins to cut a 10 foot long board into 2 equal pieces. How long would it take him to cut an identical board into 4 equal pieces? Making instructions clear reduces mistakes. Likewise it should be divide 20 by "one half", not by "half".

@Road-to-GM-Title-1Chess 5 months ago

Thanks for this content! Your channel is teaching me a lot of new tricks and tips!

@LandynPlayz4693 5 months ago

The number “A” is something I really appreciate

@mikefochtman7164 4 months ago

Mistake #8 is from not performing proper 'units analysis'. It's not often taught very well, but you can treat units of measure much like algebraic symbols and 'cancel' them between numerators and denominators and conversion factors are simply "muliplying by one". If 1 hour = 3600 seconds, then multiplying anything times (3600 Seconds/ 1 hour) is multiplying by '1' and you cancel one unit leaving the other.

@prathibhasreekanth3266 4 months ago

mistake no.6 i got trapped nicely very nice question btw love ur channel

@arseniikalashnik7585 5 months ago (edited)

That's why we use definitions.
I can define "division by half" as division by 2, by 1/2, by 10, by e, by i, anything.
It is not a mistake to read it differently, it is a mistake not to define the task properly.

@mikefochtman7164 4 months ago

Mistake #7 can be avoided if you remember that the 'vinculum' (that's a fancy word for the line used to indicate division) is much like parenthesis. You must perform all operations under the 'vinculum' just as you perform all operations inside of parenthesis first. But you do NOT have to perform operations above the vinculum.