Numismatic Geometry Exam Question Too Hard?

[Gerald H]

Students complain:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/119...ernet.html

[CR Haeger]

Its pretty straight forward assuming the major faces of the coins fall in the same 2D plane. Otherwise, theta is smaller than the "correct" answer - right?

[BruceH]

That's really quite easy - but as the girl quoted in the article says: it's easy to over think these things in exam situations.

My other half is a primary teacher: I've asked her to mention this to the year 6 maths teacher as the UK is planning to introduce a new, 12-sided one pound coin soon. The teacher can set up the problem and go through it with the class using the pound coins and at the end show them the newspaper article and say that the 'big kids' all complained that it was too hard. Should make them feel quite chuffed.