I've changed things a little to see if it makes any difference to the amount of spam we get - currently we get something of a deluge overnight. As far as regular readers go, you'll only need answer the maths question once - after that, the form won't appear.

I was looking forward to some end of term scores etc. And a big row about how many decimal places a correct answer should have resulting in people leaving the blog.

my mental arithmetic is rubbish, so any chance to practice is welcome. 5+3 = now hang on, I know this...

And had typed my answer as 6 initially until I went back and 'checked my workings out' before hitting return.

I 'do sums', ie check statistcal data, as part of my job to ensure the great British taxpayer is getting it's moneys worth.

I'd say you're all f**ked.

... just wanted to see what question I get....

I'm in the big boys class - I get numbers bigger that 10 !

2+15 = ......

Hang on,let me think,is the answer 2! No I've got it now....5!

I got 1 + 3 =?

followed by the following:

"Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4."

Worried now that it may be a trap....

You go to the pub on a Friday, meet some people, think they're your friends, and by Monday morning they've forgotten who you are and are asking you to do sums just to prove you're human.

I thought we had a connection *sobs*

and I wear glasses so am therefore naturally briany*.

Do any other usernames have an unfair advantage?

*note deliberate mispelling of 'brainy' for low-rent comic effect.

If a woman from Minnesota downloads 24 songs illegally, what would her court fine be?

The answer is 212,000.... no hang on $1,920,000 .... no hang on $54,000... no wait a minute ......

If David Hepworth leaves the house at 9.30am, goes to work, starts writing a review, goes to the local food emporium for a bagel, returns to work via Honest Jon's record shop and arrives back home at 7.30pm, how much money does he have upon reaching his kitchen?

I believe 8+12=20 but over to you.

where pictorially represented fruit disturbingly transmogrified, e.g. 3 oranges + 4 bananas = 7 apples

Or from the jokes page of the Beano years ago:
Teacher: 'You boy, if you had 10p in one pocket and 5p in the other pocket, what would you have?'
Boy: 'Someone else's trousers.'

and John lives 30 yards from her, how many eggs are there in the basket?

...and I didn't need to buy a Nintendo DS to get it!

You should change it to an English test using the 'incorrect use of words' thread for the fund of questions.

That'd sort the wheat from the chaff.

They always told me it would come in handy one day.

"Explain the law of quadratic reciprocity using albums by Girls Aloud and Led Zeppelin to explain your working out."

7+7 =

so I answered

Oop-ip-ip oop-ip-ip, yeah!

but apparently that's wrong.

.. other than the odd entertaining self promotion blog post, I don't actually recall a splurge of spam being posted.

Unless, Fraser gets out of bed early and deletes it all before cast an early morning glance...

I had the frankly insulting '2+0' to solve.

However, at first I actually thought it said 2 divided by zero (even though the sentient me knows that 'divided by' would be a '/' on screen in any case). I struggled with the concepts of infinity for a good few seconds before realising my error.

These are new specs as well. (Same old beard, however.)

I got 1+1=

Messers Fiddler and Hope-Evans have obviously been lying to us for 37 years.

will rumble this fairly soon, so the captcha will inevitably result in an arms race. The next stage should therefore be:

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Without making reference to fixed points or directions in space, define the difference between 'left' and 'right'.

I was one of the people who struggled with the old one (with my somewhat wonksome eyes). so HOORAY.

although I'd like to see it adjusted further... so people have to type in answers like 531608 and 55378008 and other childish calculator japes... ;-)

As any fule kno there are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who can read binary and those who can't.

PS does anyone else remember using hexadecimal from far off computer days? Anyone still using it?

My favourite Maths education joke (OK, favourite out of a long list of one):

The Evolution of Math Teaching
http://www.math.odu.edu/~keyes/quotations/math.html

good at sums and can therefore manage 4+15.

I was also good at English, though, so I'm wondering why we've been set a "Math" question...

Is there less spam?

Or can I get a harder question now?

There are still a few coming through in the dead of night*. Who knew that spambots could do mathematics?

*unless there really is someone in the Massive who thinks that spraying oneself with weed killer mesmerises the opposite sex into submission.

grammar and punctuation questions ? That way I'd probably get excluded half the time. Music questions might be more interesting too.