math placements

what a day!  we had math placements today.  math placements are untimed tests.  our test had 40 questions on it.  well, untimed tests are not necessarily fun when you have children on all different levels.  my smarties were smart enough to work ahead.  my others weren't smart enough and waited for me to read every single question.  most of the time we were waiting on one little boy to finish.  he is new to our school.  i have no idea what they taught him at his last school but i am not convinced he knows anything about math... at all.

here is an example of my wild day.  one of the first questions asked "what is 9+7".  well we all know the answer is 16.  this one child got this question right by making 9 marks on his paper and then making 7 marks on his paper.  he then counted them all and got the correct answer.  yay!  the next question said "what is "48-12".  this same little boy made his 48 marks and then continued to make his 12 marks.  after he got that far he was not quite sure what to do and i think probably just picked an answer.  after a few more questions, a tough question came up. the question was "what is 100+50+4".  so this little boy goes on to make 100 marks.  then he makes 50 marks.  and finally makes his last 4 marks.  after raising his hand, i go over there and say "oh, are you done already?"  he says (and these are his exact words.... i am in no way exaggerating this conversation)  "i made my 154 marks.  now all i have to do is count them".   wait....... what........ what...... oh dear...... houston we have a problem!  that is exactly how it went. 

and this part is true too.  a couple of questions after that the question says "which sentence below equals 212?"  the answers you could pick from were the following.  A. 21+2 B. 100+20 C 200+10+2 (which is obviously the correct answer) and D. 2,000 +100 +20.  After what had happened on the previous question.... and I saw the possible answer on D, I almost about fainted thinking about how the whole class was going to have to sit there while the little boy counted 2,000 marks and then not even come up with an answer.