Solve this

I'm going with D.

 

The wording is not great. But taking it literal, I’ve chosen.

 

I am guessing the wording is tricky on purpose. Vote cast!

 

Yes.

 

Changing my vote from D to A!

 

poorly worded question that is ambiguous

 

Whatever the “answer” ends up being will be qualified with the “interpretation” of the question. Reminds me of college math classes.

 

(50/25)+20.... seems straight forward

 

"half" requires a qualifier. Without one, it is represented as ½; As a word problem, to qualify half, the preposition "of" is used with a direct object. In the context of this problem, "half of fifty" or "half of 50" would be required.

 

I was always the stupid kid in class who would get some answer like 29. It's "a"... I think

 

Exactly. But the final “interpretation” of said question will determine the solution. Reading the problem in a literal manner would reveal one solution. Reading it with assumptions (such as the one above) will yield a different solution.

 

Mathematically there is only one solution. Interpretations and assumptions of "wording" could yield A, B, D.

 

It has a qualifier, it says "by half". Therefore it would be dividing 25, if it said "in half" I'd get the intent to be dived by 2.

 

My wife is a grammar teacher... all those 'rules' make my head hurt.

 

I already know where this is going. Two camps are forming and the answer will be disputed. And all because the question is worded poorly in an attempt to get multiple “correct” answers, but the asker gets to decide which one is correct based on the intent or their interpretation of the question. Lame.

 

English, yes. Mathematically, no.

The question uses a mix of written word and numbers in order to make it a "fun riddle" thus leaving interpretation up to whomever and creating engagement. And technically you should still be "dividing by ½" or .5 which is the equivalent of multiplying by 2.

Mathematically this is how this question should be read: Remember PEMDAS

(Divide) (50) (by) (half) and (add) (20); Separate actions (or commands if you will) from numbers , group them accordingly and you get this:

(50) (Divide by) (half) (add) (20); Where "D" is the *appropriate* answer.

The English language allows you to move words around to an extent, which allows for the creation of this riddle.

 

I banged a fat girl this morning.

 

Did you bang her *in* half, or *by* halves?

 

Let's say I split her in half.

That should remove the ambiguity.

 

But how many bags were required?

 

C it is!

 

Why not by 1/2 (0.5)?

 

This is correct. If you have “50 / 2” you would say that as “fifty divided by two.” Since the wording is “divide 50 by half” it would be written as 50 / 1/2 or the same as 50 x 2. So D is the answer.

 

I've had a yankee math teacher before. Let me dumb it down for yall.
50/2=25
50/1=50
50/.5=100
See the trend?

intent doesnt matter.

If you get 6 adding half to 4, you're wrong.

 

You are correct. Here's why...

I can't believe I'm going to go super nerd when giving my example... Okay, I played Magic The Gathering for many, many, many years and I played in "league-sanctioned" tournaments at local card shops. The way things are worded really matters. For a very basic example. If you have a card that is a "Beast" with an effect that hurts "Beasts", that could mean your "beast" gets hurt too. But the card will usually say "blah blah blah other beasts", so YOUR beast doesn't get hurt.

In this case, it says "by half", which while ambiguous the word "by" plays a very special role. Since "half" can make sense in the sentence, the word "by" implies that we are looking at 1/2 and not 50/2. If it were supposed to be 50/2 it would be "in half". Since half can be seen as a number (.5), we have to assume that 0.5 is meant in the word problem. It'd be the same if they said "by fourth", it sounds wrong because no one talks like that but it would still be 1/4 (.25)

Edit: Words are stupid and confusing, thanks England.

 

How much mana did you tap?

 

I'm running mono-red and all tapped out.

 

50/(1/2) = 100

100 + 20 = 120

Put it into any programming language, this is what you’ll get. There is no qualifier that “half” means half of 50. And dividing by half ≠ dividing by 2.

 

I refuse to answer.

It's either 50 ÷ 2 + 20 which would equal 45, or it's a stupidly worded question designed to be deliberately obtuse and ambiguous in order to cause most people to feel dumb and a select few to feel smugly intellectually superior despite said superiority being bestowed upon them by a dubious application of semantics.