The ballad of problem eleven

A humorous ballad about a precalculus practice problem I encountered

It all began one dark spring day Right after problem session. That I did enter the Quasar fair And encounter problem eleven.

It came among the Precalc set A problem like any other Thought I, this looks like a physics one I’ll try it the way I’m better.

A boat goes up a stream it asked And then goes down to sea Here’s the time and its still rate How fast could the current be?

Said I, they’re asking for velocity And to work I did straight go I set out rates and distance and times And ended with Six-point-O.

Four is that answer it should be.
Quoth I in my distress Fine I’ll do it the way I should And I turned to pre-calculus.

I set the problem of up and down That boat moving too and fro I set X as my variable But again I came to six-point-O.

At least I’m consistent I thought to myself And raised my hand to a tutor summon Becca bright came to my call To help me fight foul problem eleven.

She laid it out as I had done And though she shed light for me to see “What is the answer?” She quoth in distress “Four! No! That cannot be!

She turned and called on Dory keen
Who came and said “this looks quite easy.” She laid things out upon the board Then erased her work and looked quite queasy.

“Andy’s come” quoth she to us, “and though this problem is past my power Andy can better any foul problem The kind that make all lesser men cower.”

They called him over to see the thing And he did laugh and quoth to us “I encountered this problem yesterday and seven times I made a mess.”

“It wasn’t till I went back home”
he said “and slept upon the whelp that I did find its path to solve So perhaps I can be of some help.”

He rearranged the problem terror So that it had one variable And set it before me in a form That while still bad was solvable

I algebrad that messy math And came to a quadratic I took my formula in hand And came upon the end dramatic

But no, no end would come as yet The answer was not what I sought I’d missed a negative early on Again through the Quadratic I fought.

Again the answer came out wrong I called bold Andy to my side He checked on all my algebra And found where I’d cross multiplied.

“Nay nay” said he in kindly tone This works only across an equal sign Let me guide you through this thing For you’ve been at it three hour’s time.

He began and halfway through He looked up and quoth to me “I have good news and I have bad news Which first would you rather see?”

“The bad”said I He turned and said “we didn’t need the quadratic” “the good?”asked I He smiled and said “we won’t be needing the quadratic.”

At last we came nigh to the end and he made the calculation but alas we lacked the answer still and he had no explanation.

“Tell your teachers the Quasar fair could not conquer problem eleven take a break and leave this be you’ve been at this since three and it’s after seven.”

“I shall” quoth I to Andy brave
“But first I will copy the work you have done we will show my teachers our method and perhaps they can say why our answers are none.”

And as I copied his work to the page I looked and saw an error Something had cancelled when it could not I waved across the Quasar fair.

“Andy, Andy!” I shouted and showed “This changes everything” Said he to I again we went through the algebra and when we came to the end I almost cried.

It all began one dark spring day right after problem session that I did enter the Quasar fair and encounter problem number eleven.

Sixteen taken to its square root though seven thirty was the time We finally solved and found a four now I’ve only to face it again online.