Question

A class is given this question on a test about exponents: A squirrel collects 12 nuts an hour for 12 hours on 12 days. Write an expression with and without exponents to find how many nuts the squirrel collected. Two students provided these answers.

Student A
12^3
12⋅3
36 nuts

Student B
12^3
12⋅12⋅12
1,728 nuts

Which student is correct? Explain what the incorrect student did incorrectly.

Answer 1

Student B is correct. The incorrect student (Student A) did not correctly interpret the problem. Instead of multiplying the number of nuts collected per hour (12) by the number of hours (12), they only multiplied the two numbers together. This gives an incorrect result of 36 nuts.