The Cost · Question 4 of 26
Should the robot write down every answer?
Your robot toy can write down every answer it works out in a notebook, so next time it just looks the answer up. Or it can work each one out fresh. The notebook is getting very thick, and finding a page is getting slow.
What earns a point in this world: Names the thing given up by choosing the other side.
Write it all down!
Reasons a child might give
- Looking something up is much quicker than thinking it through.
- Why do the same hard sum twice?
- The robot gets faster at everything it has seen before.
Work it out each time!
Reasons a child might give
- A notebook that thick takes ages to search.
- If something changes, the old answer is wrong and the robot won't know.
- It can't carry every answer it will ever need. It has to think sometimes.
Debate this one against an opponent that argues back.
Your child picks a side. Quill takes the other and answers what they actually said, in words a seven-year-old can read. A room of 20 moves only for a reason — and the idea behind the story is named at the end, once the debate is over. Ages 5–12.
Start debating$2.90 for the first month, then $29.90/month. Cancel any time.