I'm more appalled by my need to prove that I'm smarter than a sixth grader. Yes, I solved the problem but why the hell do I feel the need to compete with a sixth grader?
"A bit" is an understatement considering you now have to figure out the area of a sector of a circle, and also an isosceles triangle (not just a right triangle and a rectangle as in the first problem).
For a high school geometry test, this is a great problem. But for a 6th grade class, this is well beyond what 6th graders in the US are capable of I think.
Just because it was given to 6th graders doesn't mean most of those 6th graders answered it correctly, or were even expected to answer it correctly. It could have been, e.g., a bonus question. Likewise for the easier problem.
On the other hand, instructors could have spent months drilling the particular problem identification and solution pattern into the kids until they could solve it without any rigorous thought.
Also, many countries put children on different academic tracks very early in life. The US is arguably somewhat distinctive in the way we group children into classes. Usually kids in a particular grade aren't broken out, if at all, until late middle school or high school. I think it has something to do with our concept of equality, and in particular how we organize and fund our school systems. We tend to focus investments in the poorer students (poorer financially and poorer academically), while some other societies do the opposite.
In any event, my point is that the particular 6th graders given these problems could have been more math savvy than the average 6th grader.
