Question 4 - PISA

TICKETS

A train station has an automated ticketing machine. You use the touch screen on the right to buy a ticket. You must make three choices.

Choose the train network you want (subway or country).
Choose the type of fare (full or concession).
Choose a daily ticket or a ticket for a specified number of trips. Daily tickets give you unlimited travel on the day of purchase. If you buy a ticket with a specified number of trips, you can use the trips on different days.

The BUY button appears when you have made these three choices. There is a CANCEL button that can be used at any time BEFORE you press the BUY button.

Select train network

city subway

country trains

cancel

TOTAL

zeds

city subway

country trains

full fare

concession

daily

individual

buy

Select train network

Select fare type

Select daily ticket or multiple individual trips

Select number of trips to buy

You have bought a ticket.

trips

Insert payment then collect your ticket

The cost of your ticket is:

There are no tickets of this type available. Please press CANCEL and buy a different ticket.

You have finished. Click the Next button to go to the next question.

ZEDTRAINS

Question TICKETS

You want to buy a ticket with two individual trips for the city subway. You are a student, so you can use concession fares. Use the ticketing machine to purchase the best ticket available.

Once you have pressed BUY, you cannot return to the question.

RESULTS

PROBLEM SOLVING QUESTION (LEVEL 4)

The CORRECT answer involves attempts to purchase a concession ticket with 2 individual trips for the city subway AND purchasing EITHER one of the following tickets:

• City Subway/Full fare/Individual with 1 trip
• City Subway/Full fare/Individual with 2 trips

QUESTION LEVEL

At Level 4, students can explore a moderately complex problem scenario in a focused way. They grasp the links among the components of the scenario that are required to solve the problem. They can control moderately complex digital devices, such as unfamiliar vending machines or home appliances, but they don't always do so efficiently. These students can plan a few steps ahead and monitor the progress of their plans. They are usually able to adjust these plans or reformulate a goal in light of feedback. They can systematically try out different possibilities and check whether multiple conditions have been satisfied. They can form an hypothesis about why a system is malfunctioning, and describe how to test it.

NATURE OF THE TASK

Execute a plan for working around an unexpected impasse: a malfunction of the ticket machine that is only discovered after multiple steps. The student wants to buy subway tickets at the ticket machine and is eligible to concession fares, but when concession fares are selected, the machine says that “there are no tickets of this type available”. The student instead buys a full fare ticket for the subway. The problem is interactive i.e. not all information is disclosed at the outset and some information has to be uncovered by exploring the problem situation. The setting is technology because the problem involves a technological device and the focus is social because the problem involves the the community or society in general.

PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS

The process is monitoring and reflecting because it involves monitoring progress towards the goal at each stage, including checking intermediate and final results, detecting unexpected events, and taking remedial action when required; and reflecting on solutions from different perspectives, critically evaluating assumptions and alternative solutions, identifying the need for additional information or clarification and communicating progress in a suitable manner.