It depends on how many trees there were!
Exactly. That question is not a correctly phrased math question.
Talk about dumbing down eduction by dumbing down teaching skills. The “teacher” that wrote that question is an idiot and should be disciplined for incompetence.
Interesting how an affirmative action hire teacher may have that general world view and try to push their racial hatred in a math class.
BTW, there are some other interestingly posed mathematical word problems that are a bit more contemporary than irrelevant 140 year old slavery based questions that could apply with more relevance to the current ghetto dwelling, fifth generation welfare class black experience.
Just sayin’
X = (O/S) * Y, where O = number of oranges/tree; S = number of slaves picking; and Y = number of trees
Since 1 = sin^2 Θ + cos^2Θ; and cosΘ = ±√[(sin^2 Θ + cos^2Θ) - sin^2Θ] we can now combine and simplify ...
...we can now see that it is obvious that ...
...and now by plugging in our numbers we can further simplify the problem to X = 9Y
Assuming a positive integer for Y (ignoring 'fractional trees' due to rot, insect damage etc. causing less than 56 oranges on a particular tree), we still DO NOT KNOW, because the number of trees is NOT SPECIFIED!
But you get the idea, anyway. Read Chapters 17 -19, and do the problems on pages 320, 357, and 380, with proofs and showing your work, before next class!
I hated darn near every math teacher I ever had.