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nydus/A Tangled TalePublic
Page 101 of 144
Table of Contents

APPENDIX.

answer is right. Of the remaining 28, no less than 26 have sent in accidental solutions, and therefore fall short of the highest honours.

I will now discuss individual cases, taking the worst first, as my custom is.

Froggy gives no working—at least this is all he gives: after stating the given equations, he says "therefore the difference, 1 sandwich + 3 biscuits, = 3d.": then follow the amounts of the unknown bills, with no further hint as to how he got them. Froggy has had a very narrow escape of not being named at all!

Of those who are wrong, Vis Inertiæ has sent in a piece of incorrect working. Peruse the horrid details, and shudder! She takes x (call it " y ") as the cost of a sandwich, and concludes (rightly enough) that a biscuit will cost (3- y )/3. She then subtracts the second equation from the first, and deduces 3 y + 7 × (3- y )/3-4 y + 10 × (3- y )/3 = 3. By making two mistakes in this line, she brings out y = 2 ⁄ 2 . Try it again, oh Vis Inertiæ! Away with Inertiæ: infuse a little more Vis: and you will bring out the correct (though uninteresting) result, 0 = 0! This will show you that it is hopeless to try to coax any one of these 3 unknowns to reveal its separate value. The other competitor, who is wrong throughout, is either J. M. C. or T. M. C.: but, whether he be a Juvenile Mis-Calculator or a True Mathematician Confused, he makes the answers 7 d. and 1 s. 5 d. He assumes, with Too Much Confidence, that

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