Ode to Extraneous Information in Math Problems

Bob is 12 and Sue is 13. They each have 4 cats. Bob bought an ice-cream cone for $3.27. Sue spent her money on a bag of oranges (which cost $1.75). She then did 64 jumping jacks.

How much more money did Bob spend than Sue?

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I was first aware of extraneous information at some point in elementary school. Let's say 4th grade. Up until the 4th grade, math problems were simple: how many quarters are in a dollar? how many minutes are in an hour and a half? what is two plus two? I could do this stuff.

Lo and behold, 4th grade (or whenever it actually was) rolled around and attempted to flip my world over, kinda like what you do to mattresses after you've slept on one side for a long time: get your mom or brother to help you, you each grab an end, you wrestle with the very large cushion and try to finagle it over onto its side, but of course the fan is on and the mattress can't stand on its end, so you must turn the fan off as your brother (or mom) impatiently holds the better part of your bed awkwardly in the air so that the corner you let go is slumping down a bit and generally making it very difficult for your poor mom (or brother) to hold; but then you get back and the fan is off and now things are a bit easier to manage, and after a few minutes of grunting and mild complaining you get the mattress turned over, usually to realize that you left the mattress cover on the side that was the top and is now the bottom, and that the entire flip-flopping exercise was essentially pointless.

Extraneous information. Is it even necessary in math problems? Yes, it is. Here's why:

Were it not for extraneous information rearing its pock-marked and ugly face (it had a huge nose and its eyes were too close together, did you know that?) in the 4th grade, no one would ever be ready for calculus.

Whoa, whoa, hold the phone--calculus? You're making an awfully large jump here, am I sure I heard you correctly?

Yes, yes you did--and you didn't "hear" me, because I'm not talking. I'm typing.

If people hadn't learned to ignore the number of jumping jacks Sue performed or the number of cats Bob owned, if they hadn't developed the keen frustration-quelling senses that are cultivated when dealing with the extraneous information section of 4th grade math, if they hadn't stared in dumb frustration at their math books (the kind with a colorful cover on the front and pictures of children on the inside, one of whom was always confined to a wheelchair), then they would never have developed the patience to handle calculus.

Calculus (any of its forms, really. Calc 1, 2, 3...take your pick!) could be nerve-wracking. It could be infuriating. It tried its best to flip your world upside down (remember the mattress?).

But thanks to 4th grade and the unnecessary information that everyone had learned to deal with and sift through, calculus was a breeze. We could handle it.

You might argue that the parallels aren't there, but you're wrong. (Sorry.) But, you say, Calculus is vectors and rotations and derivatives and integration!

You'd be correct in stating that.

But "vectors and rotations and derivatives and integration" translates to "very, very annoying." And guess what 4th grade's extraneous information translates to for a 4th grader? You're quick! "Very, very annoying."

Deal with one and you can deal with the other.

Thanks to all of that unneeded and unwanted info, I was able to pass calculus, a form of math that I will never, ever need again--and you can thank English degrees for the latter.