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It's a Scrabble

Age 7 to 11
Challenge Level Yellow star
  • Problem
  • Student Solutions
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We had nearly $50$ solutions and ideas sent in for this challenge. Georgina from GISC in Malaysia, Tallulah, Danyal, Devraj, Anna, Aishwarya  and Jessica from Salcome Prep School in England, Briana from the International Community School of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia sent in the values of names.

Suruchi from Salcombe in the United KingdomӬ wrote this;
What is your name worth using this code? My name is worth $12$.

Try some other names - what names are worth the most and which are worth the least? The names that are worth the most are: Elizabeth and Zack. The names that are worth the least are P: Ben and Maya. The names which have the letters Q and Z are worth the most because they have the highest value of $10$.

Are longer names always worth more? Longer names are not always worth more. This is because they may not always have the high value worth letters like : Q,Z,J and X.

Can you work out why certain letters are worth a lot and why others are
only worth one?

The commonly used letters for names like a,e,i,o,u are worth less. The very rarely used letters like q,j,z and x  for names are always worth more.

 

Alya, also from Salcombe wrote,

The different values are decided on how often the letter the is used. The letters that are used the most get the lower values and the mose rare ones get the highest values.
Other languages would be judged the same - most often letters lower values and rare higher values.
Longer names don't have to be worth more because they might have very common letters. But if they don't, they will be worth quite alot. Shorter names might have rare letters and be worth more than a longer name with more common letters.

 

Thank you for all these contributions and to everyone who sent in their name as a value.

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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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