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She told me she thought the answer was 11 and I told her based on the way the question was asked, she was correct.

Please, don't screw your daughter up like this. Based on the way the question was asked, "How many MORE of this colored balloon than the other color?" the only possible answer is 1. If there are 6 of A and 5 of B and I ask how many more of A, the answer is the difference between the two , 6-5, which is 1. There is no other answer. It didn't ask, "There are 6 of A and 5 of B, how many all together?"

aruanan said: "... the only possible answer is 1. "

Years ago I decided that I am of well above average in intelligence, reading comprehension, and mathematical ability. In the vast majority of cases where I find instructions unclear, I don't blame myself.

What I would ask you is, was this a test of reading comprehension or was it a test of subtraction? If the former, then I think we would agree that the question could have been clearer.

If the test was intended to guage the students understanding of subtraction, was it successful? That is, do we properly conclude that the student does not understand that she should use subtraction to find the difference between a quantity of one thing and a quantity of another?

For some reason I found that the two chemistry instructors I had, in high school and college, were both lacking in the ability to properly apply logic and the ability to clearly craft a technical question. The result was that I could understand exactly what was taught in the class, but I couldn't manage to consistently choose the answer that the instructor intended on an examination.

The result was that I was usually successful in challenging the instructors during the review of the exam, but this created a conflict with the instructor which obviously made them unhappy with me because it diminished them in the eyes of the other students.

If the paper is in black and white, ALL the balloons are the same color, so couldn’t the answer be 0 if the question is how many MORE of this color is there?

The teacher should have explained there was a problem with the balloons being the same color and not marked it wrong but “x”ed it out as not valid and explained the problem at a first grade level.