June 25, 2004
Educational Riddle

Suppose you're teaching at a boys' high school. On Monday, your students greet you by shouting: "Have you heard? X has been expelled for putting seventeen stitches in Y's face!"

Questions:

  1. On what day will X actually be expelled?
  2. How many stitches were there?

The answers are in the extended entry.

Answers:

  1. Wednesday, and the student may well have been allowed to 'withdraw' to avoid expulsion. I wasn't specifically told.
  2. Eleven. A 50% markup, rounded upwards, seems about right for excited adolescents.
Posted by Dr. Weevil at June 25, 2004 08:37 PM
Comments

At the boy's school I teach at, it probably would have been almost exactly the same. Our boys tend to be storytellers anyway (I should know, I am one), so there may have only been 8 or so stitches, if any.

It's good to see there isn't anything specifically wrong with our students.

Posted by: Felix on June 28, 2004 02:22 PM