A good friend, a teacher, sent me one of the math questions from the basic skills tests. These tests are given in the fourth year of compulsory secondary education to assess whether students have "achieved" the minimum knowledge required for their age. One of the questions begins with this statement: "Mario is 7 years old. On Saturday at 9:00 p.m., his parents detected that he had a fever. Since then, they have taken his temperature several times. The following graph shows the times they did so and the temperature obtained."
The first question for the students (remember, between 15 and 16 years old): "How many times have Mario's parents taken his temperature?" And then, three possibilities: 11, 12, and 13. The student then places the tip of the pen on the paper and counts (if he's lucky) to eleven. Another question asks how many times the temperature has been 39ºC or higher, and another, how many hours have passed since Mario's parents detected that he has a fever.
I think it's wonderful that the feverish child has a non-Catalan name (Mario), although I regret that his parents are heteronormative. Father and mother? Uix. I also regret that Mario is not a girl and that his parents, apparently, are not explicitly anti-vaccine and are in favor of the pharmaceutical industry. As for the resolution of the problem, it makes me happy that a sixteen-year-old ganapiano knows, perhaps, how to add up to eleven.
