5th grade English question
 

I'm trying to help my little brother with his homework, but even I don't get this one:

"Circle the pair of words that would be guide words for the dictionary entries of the following words: 'wear' and 'wild.'

Wednesday/woman
wait/wipe
weak/wife"

My only guess is "weak/wife" because when you wear something down, you make it weak...and wild wife? I dunno.

arent guide words the words at the top of the page of the dictionary?

if thats the case it couldnt be weak/wife because wild comes after wife

and it couldnt be wednesday because that comes after wear

so it must be wait/wipe

DOH! hehe thanks shani! Now I feel reeaal stupid. :o

Shani Faye has it correct.

YAY do I win something?

oh wait this was for a 10 year old......so I'll just say...glad to be of help :)

hmm wish i woulda seen that 1 first.... im never right but i had that 1

Err, if you are looking for the word that will apear on the top of the page containing say, wear, wouldn't you be looking for a word that is before it?

That would make the answer weak/wife.

Or are we looking for an interval that will contain the pair of words, making it wait/wipe?

it needs to include both 'wear' and 'wild.'

So: wait, wear, wild, wipe.

Why does the question seem too simple for a 10 year old to me?

It's just about knowing your alphabet, which iirc I had down @ age 5?

maybe it's jsut an excersize in slowing down and thinking? (which I think even us adults had to think a few seconds and order things).

I think that's a bit harsh. The problem is certainly simple enough, but it depends absolutely on knowing (or being able to divine) the definition of the term "guide words". I have certainly never heard the term before, and the little mental jump required doesn't really have any correlation with age or grasp of the alphabet at all.

The directions say to locate which guidewords in the dictionary would include the given words. An educated guess is that the class the child is in is practicing using a dictionary, therefore the definition of 'guide words' was given to him in class. As a teacher, my experience has been that 10-year-olds will look straight into your eyes and say they understand the directions but have absolutely no clue as to what they are supposed to do.

The correlation was there - it just didn't make it all the way home until he had to do his homework. :rolleyes:

Perhaps I misread SiN's comment; it seemed to me there was a jab in there at the adults discussing this question on the boards. That's where my comment was directed.