This week I received my first quiz mark. To my shock, it was not perfect. I've learned even if the question and scenario is simple, sometimes the thinking is not. As a U of T student, it's hard to assume that there could be a possibility with no students (an empty set). The question stated to not assume anything about U of T students. I thought that was referring to the students taking linguistics or programming and failed to realize that I had assumed there were students at U of T.
Looking over my notes and how frequently the empty set occurs, I should have expected it to be related. As a next step for future quizzes, I need to pay more attention to details and the question wording. Perhaps even carry out Polya's problem solving tactics, or at least understand the problem properly. If the question was not phrased in terms of something relatable, I believe I would have considered the empty set case and would not have made this issue. What made it difficult was that I automatically assumed there were students at U of T.
Clearly, I have not had enough practice solving word problems. As a next step, I should consider all cases, and read over the question with attention to details. Even those that may not seem important, may actually play a huge role in the solution. For example, when trying to solve the age of the 3 children (the problem I wrote in my first post), information such as the eldest played piano, or we couldn't hear the sum of their ages actually turned out to be essential pieces of information.
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