The first mathematics concept I learned was addition. The second was subtraction. You know… word problems? 2+2? That kind of thing? Here, I'll demonstrate for the stupid:
In order to start constructing the house, Charlie and his father needed to gather some wood from the forest. If they initially have 15 extra planks of wood in the house and Charlie and his father got 10 planks of wood each, how many pieces of wood do they have in total?
It’s pretty easy if you know the lingo. They’re starting with 15, maybe they had the pieces lying around. Maybe they were left over from a remodel. But how do they have extra planks in the house if they need to get wood to start constructing in the first place? That’s just sloppy details. Someone in this problem is a liar. Good for them.
Okay, back to the lesson.
So ignoring this glaring error, let’s say they’ve started the reno, have 15 planks of wood left over from installing part of the foundation, but they need more. They go out to the market, maybe the black market - what if Charlie’s dad was secretly a smuggler? That would be a lot more interesting. Oh, I know! Maybe the wood is made from some poor Tunawa…
I’m doing it again, shit.
So, they get ten pieces (10) each: Ten (from Charlie murdering the poor stick people) plus ten (from his dad’s haul… more like hunt), plus the fifteen they started with (where did they get this, do you think?)
15 Starting wood
+10 Ol’ Charlie is at it again
+10 Dad setting an example of hard work
_____
35 poor souls ripped from their vessels.
This is easy. Let's do another:
While building the house, Charlie noticed that they were running out of nails so he told his father he’s going to buy some. If they still have 9 nails left and Charlie bought 2 boxes of nails, the big one containing 55 nails and the small one containing 31, how many nails will they have?
This one is stupid. Whoever wrote it didn't really specify that they bought two boxes of differing sizes, what do they want me to do? Assume? FINE. So, Charlie the Tunawa Killer and his father, a Lord of the Black Market need to nail the corpses of their victims in place. Let's see:
9 Left over nails
+55 big torture instruments
+31 slightly smaller torture instruments
_____
95 total ways to put a Tunawa in their place
These are easy problems, but I don't see why some people have so much issue with math when it's written out. Sometimes it's about identifying the parts that matter and ignoring the ones that don't. My classmates will literally cling to such nonsense and will completely ignore the important facts. C'mon. Homework's not done yet.
To have a more stable treehouse, Charlie’s father decided to tie the corner posts of the house to the tree itself. He used 24 inches of rope for the first post, 20 inches on the second, 14 inches on the third and 12 inches on the fourth. He also had 15 feet of cable, but didn’t use that. How many inches of rope were used?
Do you see this stupidity? Read it. All of it. The only thing this "problem" wants you to answer is the length of rope used. Why in Delroth's name is it asking for cable? To confuse; honestly, if some kid comes to class tomorrow and gets this wrong, their parents failed them. Society failed them. They should be put down. Also, notice how they said "feet" of cable. Not inches. They want someone to feel clever seeing that little detail, do all this extra work to find out how many inches are in fifteen feet (180, by the way), thinking a pupil might be easily distracted.
A complete waste of effort to lull someone into a false sense of security. I swear teachers think they are the most clever of things.
Here's your answer:
24 + 20 + 14 + 12 = 70 inches of rope.
So, there's addition. Subtraction is the same, just reversed. You take things away, meaning your numbers reduce. Multiplication is, in theory, similar to addition. Like a mathematical short hand for x + x + x + x + x, etc.
Child's play.
Moving away from the riveting life of Charlie and his father, let's keep it simple. I'm not going to even try and insult your intelligence, unlike some.
There are 9 birds in a tree. If this is the case for all trees present, how many birds are in 6 trees?
Now, you can do it the loooong way, which really isn't substantial in higher levels of mathematics, but for the sake of this exercise...
9+9+9+9+9+9 = 9x6
9x6=54 birds
I don't think you really know how terrifying 54 birds can be. If they all swooped from the skies, decided that they weren't interested in worms anymore but human flesh? And I'm not just talking about carrion feeders, I'm talking about, they want to eat the jelly from your eyes, pluck out your fatty tongue. They say Delroth's curse makes all birds in a vicinity attack you. You try fighting off 54 birds, let alone any avian within your vicinity. I once saw an entire tree that I thought was full of leaves. One of the children in Desnind launched an arrow and what I thought were leaves - ever single one screeched and began taking to the skies. It was an incredible and terrifying thing to witness.
