A Common Core(?) triangle

This is an actual homework problem from my kids' cousin's 4th grade homework.

Ooh two slashes there... indicating this is an isosceles triangle? Oh all sides are 3. This is an drawn-poorly-out-of-proportion equilateral triangle!

Perimeter is easy. 3+3+3 = 9.

Ok, height = 2. ½ base × height = 3 cm ². Done?

But look! Waita minute. The height is 2? But this is an equliateral triangle governed by 2 special 1-2-sqrt(3) triangles. So the height is 1.5 × sqrt(3) = 2.598... not 2 even when you do some rounding.

So the area is 1.5 × sqrt(3).

The students in that class has not seen a radical nor have any idea about the Pythagorean theorem. Something is wrong here.

I think I need to go beg the teacher to tell me the right answer.

Now, I need to beg the teacher to tell me another thing: what the heck is this "number model" here?

This post probably isn't going viral.

Millions if not billions would be wasted

This guy announced running for president. That guy announces running for president.

And yes a ton of other campaigns too for various positions.

Each of them would raise plenty of money, in millions if not billions. And of course there is one winner and the losers lost all that money in their campaign too.

Now that is really wasting a ton of money. Can that be reduced? How about changing the term of president from 4 to 8? Then everyone is a two-term-er!

Ok that would stay in power for too long. What about 6. That messes up the cycle that the Constitution intended too. Oh well, that term is fixed.

If you don't have realistic chance to win, just don't bother running.

I am stumped too on this problem too

There is no escape. Everywhere you look you see this math problem go viral:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/science/a-math-problem-from-singapore-goes-viral-when-is-cheryls-birthday.html.

I admit I am stumped too as this is hard because the clues seems to tell you... nothing:

Albert: I don’t know when your birthday is, but I know Bernard doesn’t know, either.

Bernard: I didn’t know originally, but now I do.

Albert: Well, now I know, too!

This doesn't fall into usual logic puzzles of clues... I can't easily put it into conditions or predicates then link them together.

Now, before you say everyone in Singapore is smart in math but all Americans all bad. Just what "math" are we dealing with here? This is some logic puzzle. Logic isn't only appearing in math you know.

Why did Hamlet see his dad's ghost? If Hamlet's dad is dead he may become a ghost then Hamlet may see it! (A quick example of logic in other place)

It is perfectly fine if you can't tell Cheryl's birthday. This seems not to be a typical... not even a good problem that test ability to link logical pieces together.

But it isn't ok for American students to not even know how to add some fractions by 5th grade or so.

Just grab Cheryl's ID card is the quickest way to find her birthday if she isn't telling.