I’m clearing out my inbox, trying to tie a bow around this pseudocontext thing. Here are three problems that satisfy the first half of the working definition of pseudocontext.
Anonymous
CollegeBoard’s SpringBoard Mathematics with Meaning – Algebra 1:
One thing there: according to FIFA’s Laws of the Game, the dimensions that satisfy the math problem – eighty yards by eighty yards – aren’t legal:
I suppose you’re just hoping no one in the class knows you can’t have square soccer fields.
McDougal-Littell’s Mathematics Concepts and Skills (Course 2):
Things don’t fall at constant rates. That isn’t what things do.
McDougal-Littell’s Algebra 1: Concepts and Skills:
Regardless of how long someone’s been running or how tired they are, they will always move at a constant speed of 200 meters per minute when running up hill and a constant speed of 250 meters per minute when running down hill. Since runners can only run at two different speeds, there is clearly no acceleration nor deceleration – just instantaneous jumps from one speed to another which coincide with the instantaneous changes between the only two slopes in the math world.
A quick aside to the pseudocontext: the problem asks the student to “write an algebraic model” but not before it gives her the “verbal” model. I’m not always certain how helpful to be in these situations but I know you have to be less helpful than that.
