Homework for Weds. December 3

Assignment:  Real Life Negatives B

Here we go again!

I'm still not concerned with equations, but I am interested in how you are thinking about these problems.  Please "show" how you are solving them.

Do think about "collecting" (associating) negatives with negatives (blue cowboys, or being in the red) and positive with positives (yellow cowboys or being in the black).

Here is an example:  You went up 2 stairs, down 5 stairs, up 10 stairs, down 25 stairs, up 13 stairs, down 5 stairs, up 67 stairs ... where are you?  

* 2 - 5 = -3 + 10 = +7 - 25 = -18 + 13 = -5 - 5 = -10 + 67 = 57

Do you see why this could be tedious to solve and have the potential for multiple errors?  

Now look at it in color ...  with association (we'll use red and black here):

You went up 2 stairs, down 5 stairs, up 10 stairs, down 25 stairs, up 13 stairs, down 5 stairs, up 67 stairs ... where are you?  

*Let's see ... I went up 2, 10, 13, and 67 steps for a total of 92 steps up.

    I went down 5, 25, and 5 steps for a total of 35 steps down.

It looks to me like I will end up above where I started, eh?  92 - 35 = 57 steps higher than where I started.

This is just one way of thinking about these problems and, seriously, the method I always use.  If you haven't tried it, I encourage you to try it for at least one of these problems tonight.

Keep thinking!

Due Thursday