# A great algebra question. (Or is it?)

I absolutely love the following algebra question:

Mrs. Ortiz made a batch of cookies for Carlos, Maria, Tina, and Joe. The children shared the cookies equally and finished them all right away.

Then Mrs. Ortiz made another batch of cookies, twice as big as the first. When she took the cookies off the cookie sheet, 6 of them crumbled, so she didn’t serve them to the children. She gave the children the rest of the cookies.

Just then, Mr. Ortiz came home and ate 2 cookies from the children’s tray. Each of the children ate 3 more cookies along with a glass of milk. They were stuffed, so they decided to leave the last 4 cookies on the tray.

1. How many cookies were in the first batch?

2. How many cookies did each of the children eat?

The reason I love this algebra question is that it wasn’t an algebra question. It was a question that was posed to upper elementary students. (Here are the Google results for this question; most of the results are brain-teaser type questions for students ranging from 4th grade to 6th grade.)

As a math person, my first instinct probably would be to let $x$ represent the number of cookies that each child ate on the first day and then set up an equation for $x$ based on the information from the second day. There may be other algebraic ways of solving this problem that are just as natural (or even better than my approach.)

So try to think about this problem from the perspective of a child who hasn’t learned algebra yet.  How would you even start tackling a complex problem like this if you didn’t know you could introduce an $x$ someplace?

I encourage you to take a few minutes and try to solve this problem as a 4th or 5th grader might try to solve it.

While this problem doesn’t require the use of algebra, it does require the use of algebraic thinking. That’s what I love about this problem: even a 9-year-old child can be reasonably expected to think through a solution to this problem, even if the methods that they might choose may not be those chosen by students with more mathematical training.

My observation is that math majors in college — even those that have good teaching instincts and want to teach in high schools after graduating — have a difficult time thinking that far back in time. Of course, putting themselves in the place of students who have not learned algebra yet is a good exercise for anyone who wants to teach algebra. So that’s a major reason that I love this problem; it’s a good vehicle for forcing college students who are highly trained in mathematics to think once again like a pre-algebra student.

## 2 thoughts on “A great algebra question. (Or is it?)”

1. That’s a fine thought. I have to admit I’m thrown more than I like by trying to tackle a problem with “more basic” tools than I feel like. This even though the more basic the tool, well, the more easily it communicates to people who aren’t mathematics majors.

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