(New Question of the Week) This week I answered a seemingly simple question that can be solved in several different ways when presented as multiple choice, but is rather difficult as a straightforward algebra problem. Trying to guess what the “patient” had done yielded an invalid method that gave the right answer — or was it really invalid? …
We frequently get questions about how to round; so many different issues arise that I won’t try to fit them all into one post. Children have trouble learning how to do it, and sometimes their parents are surprised to find that they are being taught a different way than they learned. There are several common …
While pondering issues that often give students trouble in algebra, I decided to check what we have said in Ask Dr. Math about inverse functions. I discovered four answers (all, as it happens, written by me – I tend to be attracted to certain topics!) to essentially the same question, spread over 13 years. It …
How to Find an Inverse Function: Conflicting Approaches Read More »