A student has missed an excessive number of days at school and thus the principal called him to his office and requested for an explanation.
The student said, “There just isn’t enough time for school. I need 8 hours of sleep a day, which adds up to about 122 days a year. Weekends off is 104 days a year. Summer vacation is about 60 days. If I spend about an hour on each meal, that’s 3 hours a day or 45 days a year. I need at least 2 hours of exercise and relaxation time each day to stay physically and mentally fit, adding another 30 days. Add all of that up and you get about 361 days. That only leaves 4 days for school.”
The principal is confused, but can’t figure out why. What is wrong with the student’s argument?
The student is double counting a lot of the days. A lot of the time spent sleeping, eating, and relaxing occurs during weekends and the summer. Weekends also occur during the summer, so all of these hours are getting counted several times.
And, school is not an all day affair. So the 4 days actually represents more days of school. If school is 6 hours per day, those four days represents 16 days of school.