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 Student B
123 123
12⋅3 12⋅12⋅12
36 nuts 1,728 nuts
Which student is correct? Explain what the incorrect student did incorrectly.

(2 points)

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT 3.5]

Student B is correct.

Student A provided the expression 123, which is incorrect. The expression should involve multiplication to represent the number of nuts collected per hour and the number of hours the squirrel collected nuts. Student A simply added the numbers together instead of multiplying them.

Student B correctly used the expression 12⋅12⋅12 to represent the number of nuts collected. This is because the squirrel collects 12 nuts per hour for 12 hours, and this happens for 12 days. By multiplying these numbers together, we get the total number of nuts collected, which is 1,728.