A question came up in one of the past year exam paper. Given that the area of the rectangle ABCD is 120 square centimetre and E is the mid-point of DC, find the area of triangle DBE.
Once upon a time, a student was in a physics class. He had achieved an otherwise perfect score, but the marker had graded him poorly on one question. The question had asked him how he would measure the height of a building using a barometer. The student had written down, “Go to the top of the building. Drop the barometer and count the seconds until it smashes on the sidewalk below. Then use the formula for acceleration by gravity to determine the height of the building.”
Of course, having referenced a barometer, the tester expected the student to use air pressure as a tool for measuring height. Since this answer did not demonstrate that the student knew how to solve questions about air pressure, he couldn’t pass that portion of the test. When the student brought up that his answer did solve the question being asked, the professor made a compromise.
