II.

POLYA’S PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY

Polya’s First Principle: Understand the problem

This seems so obvious that it is often not even mentioned, yet students are
often stymied in their e orts to solve problems simply because they don’t
understand it fully, or even in part. Polya taught teachers to ask students
questions such as:

Do you understand all the words used in stating the

problem? What are you asked to find or show?

Can you restate the problem in your own words?

Can you think of a picture or diagram that might help you understand the
problem?

Is there enough information to enable you to find a solution?

Polya’s Second Principle: Devise a plan

Polya mentions that there are many reasonable ways to solve problems.
The skill at choosing an appropriate strategy is best learned by solving many
problems. You will find choosing a strategy increasingly easy. A partial list of
strategies is included:

Guess and check Look for a pattern

Make an orderly list Draw a picture
Eliminate Solve a simpler
possibilities Use problem Use a model
symmetry Work
Consider special backwards Use
cases Use direct a formula Be
reasoning Solve an ingenious
equation
 Polya’s Third Principle: Carry out the plan

This step is usually easier than devising the plan. In general, all you need is
care and patience, given that you have the necessary skills. Persist with the plan
that you have chosen. If it continues not to work discard it and choose another.
Don’t be misled, this is how mathematics is done, even by professionals.

Polya’s Fourth Principle: Look back

Polya mentions that much can be gained by taking the time to reflect and
look back at what you have done, what worked, and what didn’t. Doing this will
enable you to predict what strategy to use to solve future problems.

III.Objective

 Understand Polya’s Problem-Solving Cycle.

 Share some practical ideas for what this might look like in
various subjects.
 Think about how this might be applied in your own subject.

IV. Brief and simple discussion on Polya’s Method

1. UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM

 First. You have to understand the problem.

 What is the unknown? What are the data? What is the condition?
 Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Is the condition sufficient to
deter-mine the unknown? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or
contradictory?
 Draw a figure. Introduce suitable notation.
 Separate the various parts of the condition. Can you write them
down?

2. DEVISING A PLAN

 Second. Find the connection between the data and the

unknown. You may be obliged to consider auxiliary problems if
an immediate connection cannot be found. You should obtain
eventually a plan of the solution.
  Have you seen it before? Or have you seen the same problem
in a slightly different form?
 Do you know a related problem? Do you know a theorem that
could be useful?
 Look at the unknown! Try to think of a familiar problem having
the same or a similar unknown.
 Here is a problem related to yours and solved before. Could you
use it? Could you use its result? Could you use its method?
Should you introduce some auxiliary element in order to make
its use possible?
Could you restate the problem? Could you restate it still
differently? Go back to definitions.
 If you cannot solve the proposed problem, try to solve first some
related problem. Could you imagine a more accessible related
problem? A more general problem? A more special problem?
An analogous problem? Could you solve a part of the problem?
Keep only a part of the condition, drop the other part; how far is
the unknown then determined, how can it vary? Could you
derive something useful from the data? Could you think of other
data appropriate to determine the unknown? Could you change
the unknown or data, or both if necessary, so that the new
unknown and the new data are nearer to each other?
 Did you use all the data? Did you use the whole condition?
Have you taken into account all essential notions involved in the
problem?
3. CARRYING OUT THE PLAN

 Third. Carry out your plan.

 Carrying out your plan of the solution, check each step. Can you
see clearly that the step is correct? Can you prove that it is
correct?

4. LOOKING BACK

 Fourth. Examine the solution obtained.

 Can you check the result? Can you check the argument?
 Can you derive the solution differently? Can you see it at a
glance?

 Can you use the result, or the method, for some other
problem?
V. Examples

1. One number is 3 more than the other. Their sum is 45. What are the numbers?

Analysis:

 Facts: two numbers, sum = 45, one is 3 greater than the other.
 If we subtract 3 from the greater number, the two numbers will be equal.
 If we subtract 3 from the greater number, their sum will also decrease by 3. I’m sure
you can do 45 – 3 in your head. Now, we have sum = 42.
 Now, that we have subtracted 3, the numbers are equal with a sum of 42. Well, we
just divide 42 by 2 since the two numbers are equal. 42/2 = 21.

So, the smaller number is 21, and the larger number is 21 + 3 = 24.
Check: Is one number 3 more than the other? Yes, 24 is 3 more than 21. Is the sum 45?
Yes, 21 + 24 = 45.

2. The sum of the numbers is 53. One number is 7 less than the other. What are the

numbers?

Analysis:
 Facts: two numbers, sum = 53, one number is 7 less than the other.
 If we add 7 to the smaller number, the two numbers will be equal.
 If we add 7 to the smaller number, the sum will also increase by 7. I’m sure 53 +
7 can be calculated mentally. The new sum is now 60.
 Now that we have added 7 to the smaller number, the two numbers are now
equal. So, we divide the sum 60 by 2 which is equal to 30.

Therefore, the larger number is 60/2 = 30. We subtract 7 from 30 to get the smaller. Now,
30-7 = 23.
Check: Is 30 + 23 = 53? Oh yes. Is one number 7 less than the other? Yes, 23 is 7 less
than 30
3. Mr. Jones has a total of 25 chickens and cows on his farm. How many of each does he
have if all together there are 76 feet?

Analysis:
Step 1: Understanding the problem
We are given in the problem that there are 25 chickens and cows.
All together there are 76 feet.
Chickens have 2 feet and cows have 4 feet.
Step 2: Devise a plan
Going to use Guess and test along with making a tab
Many times, the strategy below is used with guess and test.
Make a table and look for a pattern

Step 3: Carry out the plan:

chickens Number of chicken Number of Cow Total number of

Cows feet Feet Feet
20 5 40 20 60
21 4 42 16 58

Notice we are going in the wrong direction! The total number of feet is decreasing!
19 6 38 24 62

Better! The total number of feet are increasing!

15 10 30 40 70
12 13 24 52 76

Step 4: Looking back:

Check: 12 + 13 = 25 heads

24 + 52 = 76 feet
VI. Exercises:

1. There are four volumes of Shakespeare's collected works on a shelf. The volumes are in order
from left to right. The pages of each volume are exactly two inches thick. The covers are each
1/6 inch thick. A bookworm started eating at page one of Volume I and ate through to the last
page of Volume IV. What is the distance the bookworm traveled?

2. A hunter left camp and walked five miles south and two miles east. He shot a bear and walked
five miles north back to camp. What color was the bear?