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Analysis: Preparation for Grade 7 SBAC April 2015

Cost (in dollars)

1. INTERPRETING GRAPHS AND UNIT RATES
Rayan was interpreting the graph below that described the cost of bananas at
Safeway.












Weight in pounds)



Rayan said that based on this graph, bananas cost $1.25 per pound. Explain what
Rayan might have done incorrectly and identify the correct answer.

Rayan may have confused the x-axis and y-axis. The way you calculate the unit rate is to
!
!
!
find the value of , which in this case is of $0.80 per poundnot $1.25, which would be .
!

2. CALCULATING A RATE
Jenny was interpreting the following information that recorded how fast a sloth
traveled:
Distance
Time

(in miles)
(in minutes)







0.6
15




She was trying to figure out the speed in miles per hour, and thought that the sloth
was going 9MPH. Explain what she might done incorrectly. What is the correct rate
in miles per hour?
Jenny probably got 9MPH by multiplying 15 by 0.6, which is not the right way to calculate the rate.
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!.!
Rate (speed in this case) is calculated by finding
. In this instance, will yield 0.04, which is
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the speed in minutes. In order to find the MPH, simply multiply by 60 since there are 60 minutes in a
!
mile. Alternatively, you could see that 15 minutes is hour, and multiply the distance (0.6) by 4 to
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obtain the correct answer that the sloth moves at 2.4 miles per hour.

3. PERIMETER V. AREA
Trevor was examining a rectangle that had a length of 11 inches and a width of
23 inches. He claimed the area was 68 inches. What mistake did he make? What is
the correct answer?
It looks like Trevor might have calculated the perimeter instead of the area.
Perimeter would be calculated by adding the length and width and then multiplying
by 2. Area is calculated by multiplying the length by the width, which would help
you get the correct answer of 253 square inches. Also, its important to put your
answer in the correct unitssince were talking about AREA, were looking at a
square measurement, not a linear one.

4. UNIT CONVERSION
The refrigerator in the back of the classroom is 24 inches tall, 16 inches wide, and
18 inches deep. When asked to calculate the volume, Claire multiplied the three
numbers and arrived at 6,912 cubic inches. She then said that the volume in cubic
feet was 576 cubic feet. What did she do to arrive at her answers? Are they correct?

6,912 cubic inches is correct miscalculated the conversion from cubic
inches to cubic feet. It looks like she simply divided by 12, because
there are 12 inches in a foot, but when you are converting to cubic
inches, you need to divide by 12! , which is 1728. The correct answer
is 4 cubic feet. Alternatively, you could have converted the linear
units from inches to feet before multiplying.
24 = 2
!
16 = 1 1
!

8 = 1
!

2 1 1 = 4
!
!
4 cubic inches

5. CIRCUMFERENCE AND AREA
The circumference of a circle is 11 inches. How would you find out the area?


Area = !
Circumference =
Since we know the circumference is 11 inches, we can figure
out that the diameter is 11 inches. The radius is half as long as
the diameter, so the radius must be 5.5 inches, so we use this
information to calculate the area as 5.5 ! which equals
30.25 square inches.

6. SCALE DRAWINGS AND AREA

Max was asked to create a blueprint (or scale drawing) of his room. The actual
dimensions of his room are 12 feet by 16 feet. He used the scale factor of
1 = 4 . He calculated the area of his room as 192 square feet and divided
by 4 and proclaimed that his the area of the room on his drawing was 48 square
inches. What is the correct answer?
Max correctly calculated the actual area of the room at 192 square feet, but
incorrectly figured out the area. Dividing by 4 (and converting from feet to inches)
would help Max find the dimension of the room on the scale drawing, but not the
area. Since were talking about a square area, Max could divide by 16 or 4! to arrive
at 12 square inches, or he could have found the dimensions of the room on the scale
drawing and multiplied. 12 feet in real life would map to 3 inches on the scale
drawing, and 16 feet would map to 4 inches, and so the area of the room on the
blueprint would be 12 square inches.


7. NUMBER SENSE
Aidan said that the expression 7 5 (3 2) was equivalent to 4 7. What
was his error? What is the correct answer?

This is incorrect. It looks like Aidan neglected to distribute the negative sign, and he
subtracted 5 2, instead of 5 (2). The correct expression is 4 3.


8. PERCENT CHANGE
The Renegades won 20 games this year. They won 16 games
last year. Logan that represented a 20% increase from last
year, and Sarah said it was a 25% increase. Who was right?
What might the other person had done to get the incorrect
answer?

Sarah is correct, the Renegades won 4 more games this year
than last year. Calculating percent change is done by looking at
!
the amount of the change over the original amount. !" which is .25 or 25%. It is
likely that Logan calculated the amount of the change and divided it by the new
!
amount !" which is .2 or 20%.


9. UNIT RATE
!
Ms. Delaney gave her class 12 minutes to read. Ellen read 5 ! pages in that time.
!!

Sindhu claimed that Ellen would be able to read !" pages in 1 hour. Sam was sure
that Ellen would be able to read 66 pages in an hour, and Owen thought Ellen would
!
read 27 ! pages in one hour. Whos right? What mistake did the other two people
make?

!
Ellen would read 27 ! pages in one hour at this pace. Owen correctly figured out that
!

!"#$% !"#$

12 minutes was ! of an hour, and calculated the rate as

!"#$

!!

, which would be !! .
!

!
!

Sindhu calculated the pages that Ellen could read in one minute by dividing . Sam
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probably multiplied 12 5 ! to get 66. He is not certain how to calculate a rate.

10 DISCOUNT


Suzanne bought a sweater at the sale price of $25. The original
cost of the sweater was $40. James thought she received a 60%
discount. Is he correct? Show his steps mathematically. If hes
incorrect, identify the correct percent discount.

James is incorrect. It is likely that he calculated the difference in
price correctly as $15.00, but made the mistake of calculating the
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percent discount as the !!"#$%&'() !!"#$ instead of looking at the percent
discount as the

!"#$%& !! !!"#$%&'
!"#$#%&' !!"#$

!!

, or !" which is 37.5%.