Question

It is claimed that the average child has no time to go to school. For the child spends 8 hours per day,or one third of his/her time sleeping. Based on a 365 day year, that’s 121.67days sleeping. Also the child spends three hours per day eating. That’s a total of 45 days in the year spent eating. Also the child spends 90 days taking summer vacation. Also the child spends 21 days on Christmas and Easter holiday. Finally, the child has each Saturday and Sunday off. That’s a total of 104 days. In short, we (rounding to whole days accounted for 122+45+90+21+104=382 days of the year taken up by ordinary child inlike activities. This is already more than the 365 days that are known to comprise a year. We conclude that there is certainly no time for the child to attend school. What is wrong with this reasoning?

Answer 1

See below.

Explanation:

Sleeping:

8/24 * 365 = 121.76 days

Eating:

3/24 * 365 = 45.63 days

Total sleeping and eating: 167 days

Summer Vacation & Holidays:

90 + 21 = 111 days

Saturdays and Sundays: 52 + 52 = 104 days

Vacation + Holidays Saturdays + Sundays = 111 + 104 = 215 days

It may be true that all days of vacation, holiday, Saturdays, and Sundays combined are a total of 215 days, but these 215 days cannot be added to the 167 days above because these 215 days include time for sleeping and eating which was already included in the sleeping and eating times for the entire year. The mistake in the reasoning is counting twice the time of sleeping and eating on the 215 days in which there is no school.