Working Backwards
What is a problem?
Why teach problem solving?
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Inset
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Prompt poster: PDF 
Printable version: PDF Word 
Hare and Tortoise
Hare arrived five minutes after Tortoise at the finish line. It had taken him 30 minutes to run the last 3 km of the race. He had stopped off at the cake shop just before that and had spent 10 minutes buying and eating some doughnuts. Before this he had been talking to Lucy bunny for 20 minutes. He had run all the way from the start before he saw Lucy, who was standing on the halfway point outside the cake shop. It had taken him twice as long to run the first half of the race compared to the second half. (Probably because he had fallen asleep under a tree)
What time had Hare started the race?
What time did Tortoise finish the race?
If Tortoise had been travelling at a steady speed, who had reached the cake shop first?
| Questions to ask | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Did hare and Tortoise start at the same time? | This establishes the understanding of the rules. |
| How long had it taken Tortoise to get from halfway to the end of the race? | Establishes the need to read the question carefully and record all the relevant information systematically. |
| How long had the whole race taken Hare? | Establishes the need to find a total of the time taken before finding out the start time. |