« first day (24 days earlier)    last day (14 days later) » 

Martin Sleziak
Martin Sleziak
06:54
room topic changed to Improving questoins to prevent deletion of answers: About answers that should stay on the site (no tags)
For example this question:
0
Q: Determine all solutions to $|x+12|+|x-5|=15$

ManDetermine all solutions to the following. $$ \lvert x+12\rvert +\lvert x-5\rvert =15.$$

algebra-precalculus absolute-value
I guess there are users who would vote to put on hold/close for the lack of context.
The question would not be auto-deleted, since it has upvoted answers. But it would be still possible to vote to delete it.
I quite like geometric explanation given in one of the answers:
4
A: Determine all solutions to $|x+12|+|x-5|=15$

André NicolasDraw a horizontal straight line, and call it the $x$-axis. Put a dot at the origin. Put a big dot at $-12$. Put another big dot at $5$. Note that the distance between the two dots is $17$. If $x$ is any number, then $|x+12|=|x-(-12)|$ is the distance from $x$ to $-12$. Similarly, $|x-5|$ is the...

(Of course, I do not claim that something similar does not appears in other answers, but anyway I would prefer if it stayed on the site.)
How do I improve the question? Would it be sufficient to simply add some questions I would expect the OP to ask?
For example if I would add after the problem statement: How can I solve problems like this? Should I try graphing the function? Should I somehow consider various cases? Or should I square both sides and try to use identities like $|x-5|^2=(x-5)^2$?
Martin Sleziak
Martin Sleziak
07:26
room topic changed to Improving questions to prevent deletion of answers: About answers that should stay on the site (no tags)

« first day (24 days earlier)    last day (14 days later) »