Do you ever wonder why we are asked to answer stupid questions in school?

there are many branches of thinking and learning. Logical, Hypothetical, etc. i still remember during an exam, on the last page, this question made me laugh out loud and ask my professor how come a question like this is included in the exam and the question is this. "HOW MANY TENNIS BALLS WILL FIT INSIDE A CAR?" then a note under it, "BONUS QUESTION, 10 points!" haha. i also wonder why in the curriculum there are unnecessary subject that should be taught in school.

I guess there are a few reasons behind this: 1. To give you career choices. When we were young, we do not know what we want to do and we dont know whether or not we can do what we want to do. Hence I guess one of the reason why they taught us those things were to see if we develop interest in any particular subjects. All things being taught in high school are the basic building blocks which may be required when you do your Uni degree. In short, if students are not being exposed to these materials, how would they know what career path are available to them? 2. To stimulate our brains. Like every other parts of our body the more you train it the better it will become. Aside from the above, teachers cannot just decide what they think you will need to survive in the future. They are required to follow a curriculum, which are set by the government. They also have a responsibility to our parents (who paid for our study) to ensure that we are best equipped for our future career otherwise guess who will be protesting (and yeah I guess if I am a parent I would do it as well :)). This aside, I guess it would be hard to teach student based on just their specific interest. I.e. for someone who is aspiring to be an acoustic engineer the topic you have mentioned above may be relevant. Note you will experience the same thing when in Uni. More than 50% of the materials I have learnt in Uni are not used regularly at work ... but then there is always a time when those things become handy. These are just my 2cents :). L30n84

Very true!!! We all know that we deal with gravity everyday, but I don't get the point of actually calculating it...like it's an essential for living! And why do I have to measure sizes of weird shapes in Geometry? Hahaha!!! Great discussion!