Grigory Oster — "Nasty Math Problems"

Grigory Oster

"Nasty Math Problems"

"Nezavisimaya Gazeta" Publishing House, Moscow, 1992.

COMMUNISM = SOVIET POWER +
+ ELECTRIFICATION
COMMUNISM - SOVIET POWER =
= ELECTRIFICATION
COMMUNISM - ELECTRIFICATION = ?

Author's Preface

Every morning, seeing a child off to school, one wants to yell after him: "Hey, darling, watch out that they don't fool you!"

The school history textbooks are lying. Shamelessly, brazenly, right to your face. Literature textbooks are lying. Geography is fibbing.

Unhappy teachers—those who haven't lost the ability to blush—try not to use these "indispensable" teaching aids. It is no secret to anyone that school history and literature textbooks were created not so much for education as for indoctrination in the spirit of loyalty, devotion, and intolerance.

But mathematics! One would think that surely mathematics... No. It followed right along!

Did you think your children, sitting through math lessons, were learning to multiply, divide, and add? They were being skillfully and systematically subjected to ideological brainwashing.

Just look at how much interesting information, for example, a third-grader learns while solving problems from a school textbook. The characters in these little mathematical novellas are constantly going out to communist subbotniks, arriving somewhere on Komsomol travel vouchers, joining the Pioneers on V. I. Lenin's birthday, and so on and so forth. From one problem to the next, factories produce ever more above-quota goods, Komsomol-youth brigades set record after record, and if one could somehow extract from these problems the groceries delivered to stores and sold at fabulously low prices, we could have lived without a care for another seventy years.

In 1991, the "Prosveshcheniye" publishing house released new, reprinted textbooks. We open "Mathematics" for the 4th grade and on the very first page we read: "On the day of a communist subbotnik, one factory produced 600 passenger cars, while another..."

The CPSU seems to be gone, yet the problems remain.

I am convinced: whatever else happens, school math problems must not serve as a tool for indoctrinating children in the spirit of... anything at all, which is why I offer a proof by contradiction—or rather, from the obnoxious. That is, alternative problems with the exact opposite ideological leaning.

These nasty problems are not meant for children. Let our public education officials solve them. But if next year the textbooks do not change and are published in the same form, I will have to offer my obnoxious problem book to schoolchildren as well.

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Reprinted from the original by Mikel Lavrentyev, 2:5020/35@fidonet, 10-Dec-93.

P.S. from ML: Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce here the magnificent illustrations by G. Muryshkin, which were drawn for almost every problem...

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Pioneer Vovochka knew 9 dirty words, and Pioneer Valya knew 12 dirty words. How many dirty words did each of them come to know after a candid conversation at a Pioneer camp, given that before arriving at camp they shared 5 dirty words in their vocabulary?

A bottle of "Martini Rosso" contains one liter of liquid and costs 550 rubles in a commercial store. A bottle of "Cheburashka" cologne contains 0.1 liters of liquid, but costs only 1 ruble. Formulate a question and solve the problem.

During a harsh winter, two pipes burst in a residential apartment building: hot and cold. From one pipe, 50 liters of icy water spills onto the floor per hour, and from the other, 5 liters of boiling water per minute. Will the residents of the building freeze or be boiled alive?

During the all-Union military sports game "Zarnitsa", in which 7 million Pioneers and Oktyabryata took part, 3 million 567 thousand Pioneers and Oktyabryata were conditionally killed and wounded. How many Pioneers and Oktyabryata conditionally remained alive during the all-Union military sports game "Zarnitsa"?

The founder of the Vintikov working-class dynasty, Grandpa Stepan, drank 30 bottles of vodka a month and spent 63 rubles on it. His son Yegor Vintikov drank 30 bottles a month and spent 108 rubles and 60 kopecks on it. Nowadays, Stepan's grandson, Stepan Yegorovich Vintikov, drinks the same 30 bottles of vodka a month, spending 315 rubles on it. Find out how much vodka cost in the days of the grandfather, the son, and the grandson.

During a hunt in a nature reserve, 9 regional party committee secretaries killed a certain number of elk. How many elk were killed, given that after the 5 best elk antlers were sent as a gift to the General Secretary, each regional committee secretary took it on the horns?

At a video salon, 14 Pioneers and 12 Oktyabryata attended the first screening, while the second screening was attended by twice as many Pioneers and half as many Oktyabryata. How many Pioneers and Oktyabryata in total watched the super-sexy action flick "Your Trumpet Calls", which was screened at a video salon organized by the district Komsomol committee?

Sitting on a bench, a factory director occupies 40 cm of its length. His two deputies, sitting next to him, occupy 45 cm each. The accountant and the chief engineer occupy 1 meter together. The chairman of the local trade-union committee together with the chairman of the auditing commission occupy 50 cm between the two of them. Can the party organizer also sit down next to them, if the total length of the defendants' bench is 2 meters 78 cm?

The newspaper "Krasnaya Vatka" (The Red Cotton-Wool)—an organ of the Krasnovatkinsk City Committee of the CPSU—is a rectangle whose one side is 40 cm and the other is 30 cm. Twenty-three twenty-fourths of the newspaper's area was occupied by lies, and the rest was set aside for the local television schedule. What area of the newspaper was dedicated to the TV schedule?

During an all-Union subbotnik, half of the local Chekists planted birch trees, while the other half worked at their regular posts. Each Chekist planting birches put in three trees, while each of their colleagues from the other half put away five "enemies of the people". What was the total number planted during the subbotnik, given that 14 Chekists were planting birch trees?

For the regular anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the city party committee prepared 1,756 slogans and banners. On the day of the anniversary, 37 people turned out for the festive demonstration. How many slogans and banners must each demonstrator carry so that none of these slogans and banners go to waste?

In Russian literature class, Petya was assigned to memorize a poem. The word "Lenin" appears 12 times in this poem, and the word "party" appears three times more often. Find out how many lines are in the assigned poem, given that every line contains either the word "Lenin" or the word "party"?

500 kg of bananas were being transported from a warehouse to a grocery store, but only one-fifth of what left the warehouse actually arrived. The store director accepted the bananas and, setting aside half for his friends and relatives, sent the rest to the produce department. The produce department saleswoman set aside 15 kg for herself and 10 kg each for her three friends from other departments. After that, she ate 6 bananas for free and put the rest up for sale to customers. How many customers will manage to buy bananas if the frenzied crowd in line demands that they be sold strictly one banana per person, and the weight of each banana is approximately 100 grams?

Will a scale balance if a 50-gram bundle of US dollars is placed on one pan, and four 5-kopeck coins and ten 3-kopeck coins are placed on the other?

In two hours of work, a bulldozer dispersed 256 participants of an unauthorized rally. How many rally participants will the bulldozer disperse in five hours if it continues to work at the same rate of productivity?

Children were solving a math problem about cheese, oranges, and chocolate being delivered to a store. Two-thirds of those solving the problem did not know what cheese, oranges, and chocolate were, and the remaining 12 children asked what a store was. How many children were solving the problem?

Five Komsomol members and several young communists took part in acts of hooliganism. How many young communists took part in the event, given that a total of 9 staunch Leninists participated in it?

A Major General and a Colonel General shared a bottle of five-star cognac. How many stars could be counted during this event?

40 grandpas, 120 grandmas, and 3 granddaughters work on a collective farm. The number of Zhuchkas (dogs), cats, and mice on the collective farm is unlimited. How many giant turnips will they be able to pull up on this collective farm during the harvest?

Old Bolshevik Stepan Stepanovich Goryushkin was born in 1890 and died in 1962. From 1928 to 1936, Stepan Stepanovich was locked up as a German spy. From 1938 to 1946, as a Japanese spy. From 1947 to 1952, as a British spy. From 1952 to 1955, as an American spy. How many years did Stepan Stepanovich spend walking free?

At a closed party meeting, the tractor factory party organizer informed the communists that vodka had arrived at a store located 3 km from the factory. The communists dashed out of the factory and raced toward the store at a speed of 20 km/h. Five minutes later, the non-party workers found out about the vodka and ran toward the store at a speed of 40 km/h. Who will buy the vodka first: the communists or the non-party workers?

Our country stretches from west to east for a distance of 10,000 km. How much time will citizens who find themselves at the easternmost point of our country need to flee to the West, if they break into a non-stop run at a speed of 10 km/h?

Petya, arriving late for his history lesson, lied twice to the teacher: he said that there had been a fire at his house and that he was rescuing the neighbor's cat's kittens. Meanwhile, during the history lesson, while talking about the February Revolution of 1917, the teacher lied 186 times. How many times more did the teacher lie than Petya?

The line for sausage stretched for 200 meters; the line for butter was 50 meters longer than the line for sausage, and the line for bread was 5 times shorter than the line for butter. How many meters of line must one endure to eat a sausage sandwich?

Two hospitals were built in a city: one a municipal children's hospital, and the other a specialized hospital for party veterans. Both hospitals are designed for the same number of beds: 300 beds each. However, in the municipal children's hospital there are 12 beds per ward, while in the specialized one there are 2 beds per ward. How many floors are in the children's hospital building and how many in the specialized one, given that the wards in both hospitals are identical in size and there are 25 wards on each floor?

Petrovich brewed 2 liters of moonshine per day and drank 1 liter daily. After seven days, precinct police captain Kruzhkin raided Petrovich's apartment, and he and Petrovich drank 4 liters of moonshine in one sitting. How many liters of moonshine did Petrovich have left for a hangover cure?

During the years of Soviet power, Soviet writers used up 120 thousand tons of writing paper on their literary works. During those same years, Soviet writers used up three times as much paper on denunciations of each other. How much paper in total did Soviet writers use up during the years of Soviet power?

Seventy-year-old Canadian farmer Fred Chip, whose parents left their homeland five years before the Great October Revolution, has 32 teeth, while his grandnephew Fyodor Chepurenko, a twenty-five-year-old tractor driver from the "Leninets" collective farm in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, has half as many teeth. Of Fyodor's missing teeth, 10 fell out on their own, and the rest were knocked out in a fight during the celebration of International Workers' Solidarity Day. How many teeth did the tractor driver of the "Leninets" collective farm lose on International Workers' Solidarity Day?

An airplane carrying a group of Soviet specialists and a Soviet-made Scud-type missile departed from the city of Baghdad at the exact same time. The Soviet specialists arrived back in their homeland two hours after departure, while the Soviet missile reached its destination 24 times faster. How many minutes did the missile fly to its destination?

A female road worker's wage is 6 rubles a day. Every day, a brigade of 5 road workers digs 15 meters of a ditch. How many meters of a ditch must this brigade dig to earn as much as a high-risk group of 5 girls earns in one evening, if each girl receives 100 dollars for an evening spent at an Intourist hotel, and one dollar on the black market exchange rate equals 50 rubles?

A family consisting of a grandfather, grandmother, mom, dad, and four children received a 20-centimeter-long piece of sausage using ration coupons. Four centimeters were cut off for each child. The rest was divided equally among the adults. How many centimeters of sausage did each adult get?

There are 300 Pioneers in the Pavlik Morozov Pioneer brigade. All of them dream of repeating Pavlik's feat, but not all of them have such an opportunity, since 2/3 of the Pioneers are raised by single mothers. How many Pioneers will be able to repeat Pavlik's feat?

A cyclist departed from a settlement, traveling at a speed of 15 km/h. At the same time, Semyon Lazarevich Shnobelman departed from the same settlement, but in the opposite direction, heading to Israel. After 3 hours, the distance between them was 1,350 km. At what speed was Semyon Lazarevich traveling?

The passenger liner "Klara Luxemburg" sailed 10 km away from the shore and sank. The captain swam toward the shore at a speed of 5 km/h. The sailors swam toward the shore at a speed of 2.5 km/h, and the passengers at a speed of 1 km/h. How much sooner than the sailors will the captain reach the shore, and how much sooner than the passengers will the sailors reach the shore?

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