math laugh

OK, so I had Han finishing up the (Virginia) third grade SOL test this morning....you know, the most recently-released one on the DOE website?  Even though she's only finishing second grade, I wanted to get an idea of where she is; there's a couple areas we haven't learned yet.

Anyways, she got to number 42*:

A girl placed eight blocks like the ones shown, in a bag:

She pulled one block out of the bag without looking.  Which color block is she MOST likely to select?

a.  red 

b.  green

c.  blue

d. yellow

*not copied exactly so I don't get in hot water with the DoE

Hannah stared at the problem for a minute, before she said,

"uh-uh!  I'm NOT puttin' MY hand in THAT bag for NOTHIN'!"

"What?"

"You can't get ME to put my hand all the way in that bag for NOTHIN.  NO way."

"Han, what are you talking about?  Read the problem again."

"I DID.  And I'm not putting my hand in ANY bag without looking first.  There might be a scorpion in there."

(Allow me to point out that I had prayed for patience this morning, because I knew we'd be doing many many possibly difficult math problems in this test and she tends to go balky during long math sessions.  THIS is how God answered my prayer.)

((Scorpion??))

[Laughing so hard] "What do you mean?  Why would there be a scorpion in the bag?  Look at the problem and just do the problem."

"Nope, I'm not putting MY hand in THAT bag.  Maybe there will be another hand in there that will pull me in."

[!]

"Hannah, its a lunch bag. She brought it from home.  Its new.  There are no scorpions or hands in it."

"Then why can't I look?"

"Hannah," (trying not to get exasperated) "its not you doing it."

"But there might be another one of those caterpillars in there that would bite me.  Or a scorpion.  Or fire ants."

"You're not actually the one doing it, though.  The girl is."

"OK, then, it would be blue."

"Why did you choose blue?  (I only asked on this one problem, as I was devastatingly curious!)

"Because its at the bottom and on the side and if I kept my hand on the side to avoid whatever is in the bottom of the bag....."


OBVIOUSLY, probability needs to be included in our curriculum for next year.