More Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School

More Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School is the fifth novel in the Wayside School series of novels by Louis Sachar. Like Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School before it, the book resembles more like a puzzle book with a Wayside theme than a novel about Wayside. According to the book's introduction, it was created as a response to Sideways Arithmetic after receiving complaints by students and teachers over the inclusion of the logic puzzles in the story.

Like its predecessor, More Sideways Arithmetic is organized into 15 chapters, each of which features a number of mathematical and logical puzzles, with 58 puzzles in the entire book. In addition to the hints (partial solutions) and answers provided, More Sideways Arithmetic also includes "clues" (not present in Sideways Arithmetic), which aid the reader in solving the various logical puzzles.

Plot

The first 18 problems in More Sideways Arithmetic, encompassing the first six chapters, contain verbal arithmetic problems involving only addition. Among the plot developments driving the first 6 chapters include:

• Allison inviting all of the girls in Mrs. Jewls' class to her birthday party, but only two boys (Jason and Stephen), believing that the presence of more than two boys would cause all of them to act silly. While the boys complain about Allison's claim, Mrs. Jewls uses a cryptarithm to show that this is the case, but also uses another cryptarithm to show that the presence of more than two girls would cause all of them to act silly, which causes the girls to complain similarly.
• Mrs. Jewls teaches the class about arcs and bras. Dana and Rondi both complain, believing that teachers should not talk about bras because it is crass.
• Sue, the new student introduced in Sideways Arithmetic, acquires a new pet dog named Fangs. Although mean-sounding, Sue asserts that Fangs is a good dog, to which Mrs. Jewls agrees using a cryptarithm.
• Myron, Dameon, DJ, and Joy complain about the hot weather, to which Mrs. Jewls concurs using another cryptarithm.
• Miss Worm, the teacher of the 29th-floor class, complains to Mrs. Jewls about the loud noises that were frequently disturbing her class. As Mrs. Jewls asserts to her colleague that the class gets excited when they are taught arithmetic, Miss Worm becomes confused by Mrs. Jewls' teaching style (that is, using cryptarithms instead of ordinary arithmetic), attempting to teach "one plus one" to no success (as Miss Worm asserted the solution to the arithmetic equation is 2 while the class asserted that the solution to the cryptarithm is "zero"). Miss Worm's attempts to correct the unusual behaviour of the students (namely, Sharie's habit of sleeping in class) also fails. In the end, Miss Worm leaves without her concerns being addressed, while Mrs. Jewls, clueless to Miss Worm's concerns, compliments on her ability to inadvertently solve cryptarithms in her head.

The nineteenth problem, taking up the seventh chapter, is a reference to the nonexistent nineteenth floor of Wayside. In the narrative leading up to the problem, Mrs. Jewls proposes a pop quiz to be held at some point during the following week, and that the 19th problem to the book would be the hardest problem from that quiz. Although the students complain, Todd realizes that if the pop quiz had not been held by the end of the following Thursday, then the students would expect the quiz the very next day. Convinced by this counterfactual conditional statement and treating it as a material conditional statement (ie. without taking into account that the premise in Todd's argument may be false), Mrs. Jewls' declares that the quiz would not be held on the following Friday. Bebe and Maurecia then, using the same (faulty) logic, conclude that the pop quiz could not have been held on the following Thursday or the following Wednesday (again, without considering that the premises of their arguments may be false). Mrs. Jewls' convinced by the faulty arguments, declares that the pop quiz could be held on one of the two remaining days, to which Benjamin, Leslie, and Stephen conclude that it could not have been held on the following Tuesday, causing Mrs. Jewls' to cancel the pop quiz (as the students are now aware when the pop quiz will occur). Hence, there is no 19th problem.

The next 10 problems, taking up the next three chapters, are cryptarithms involving multiplication as well as addition. Unlike the first part of the novel, very little backstory is provided beyond a throwaway line by Benjamin involving him moving again (but still attending Wayside) and cryptarithms introduced during a lesson on foreign languages.

The eleventh chapter of the book contains eight logical problems, all revolving Mrs. Jewls' marking students' report cards. To avoid the debacle from marking student report cards by hand, Mrs. Jewls' had purchased a home computer, which would keep track of her students' records for her and print out 29 report cards (Sammy the dead rat from Sideways Stories From Wayside School being the 30th student) at the press of a button. However, while using the computer, her cat Monkey Face had pounced on and chased after the computer mouse, scrambling her data and rendering her data unrecoverable (partially due to her cat also having pounced on the keyboard, but mainly due to Mrs. Jewls not knowing the password to an undocumented software feature that would automatically recover her data). Resigned to marking whatever papers she can find by hand, Mrs. Jewls proceeds to endure a marathon grading session. Like Sideways Arithmetic, each report card problem consists of answers given by four of five students on a test with five problems, as well as data regarding how well the students performed recalled from Mrs. Jewls' memory (such as a student's performance relative to other students or knowledge that one of the students received a given grade), the reader is tasked to find both the answers on the test as well as assessing each student's performance. In More Sideways Arithmetic, however, variations on the theme are introduced: in one, three marked tests were given (although whether a student's specific answer to a question was right or wrong is not given) and readers are asked to determine the grade of a fourth student, while in another, readers are given the questions in random order and a few marked papers (again, which answers were right or wrong on which paper were hidden), and were asked to determine the order in which the questions were asked.

The twelfth chapter, involving the next six problems, are problems based on voting revolving around Wayside's flagpole, which had been destroyed by lightning. Mrs. Jewls' class was commissioned to determine the height of the replacement flagpole, which generated a lot of debate: several students debated that, as the old flagpole was dwarfed by the school, that a taller flagpole was to be built, while others (Stephen in particular, as he was responsible for raising and lowering the flags) wanted the new flagpole to be shorter. To settle this issue, Mrs. Jewls asks the students to write down what their ideal flagpole height would be. The answers (which formed the data set needed for these 6 problems) shown that the range of flagpole heights varied, from six feet (Stephen) to 100 feet (five students), with the mode at 25 feet. Because the "winning decision" of 25 feet was not decided by the majority of the class, the students demanded a series of runoff votes between two candidate heights (in which each student would vote for the closest height to their nominated one). Ultimately, the reader is asked to determine the height that would win against any other candidate height (which would be the height of the new flagpole), and the student that had nominated it, as well as the student that had voted for the winner in every series of runoff votes. In the end, the nomination of the generally-detestible Kathy (who is also the student to vote for the winner in every series of runoff votes) wins out, and the height of the new flagpole was determined to be at 65 feet.

The remainder of the 58 problems, covering the last three chapters, are all logical problems, where the reader is tasked to make logical conclusions based on a series of assumptions. The first five problems in this set, covering chapter 13, as well as the final problem, covering the whole of chapter 15, asks the reader to determine the truth or falsity of given statements given the assertions (some statements, however, can be true in some contexts and false in others). The nine problems of chapter 14 revolve around more complicated logics (such as those that impose some form of ordering), but are problems in a similar manner. The last two chapters of the book all revolve around "game day" at Wayside, where students and staff at Wayside compete together in a series of activities. Events included:

• a relay race involving eight of the students (Benjamin, Deedee, Joy, Leslie, Maurecia, Paul, Sue, and Todd) in two teams of four, where the reader had to identify the members of both teams
• a sack race also involving eight students (Allison, Jenny, Rondi, Sharie, Terrence, and the three Erics) in four teams of two, where the reader had to determine the members in all four teams
• a race up and down the 30 stories of stairs (involving Allison, Dameon, Deedee, Kathy, and Ron), where the reader had to identify the finishing order in both races
• "The Great Watermelon Drop", where five students (Dameon, Dana, DJ, Jenny, and Myron) were paired with five faculty members (Louis the Yard Teacher, Mrs. Jewls, Mr. Kidswatter, Miss Mush, and Miss Worm) in a unique event that saw the faculty members catch watermelons pushed by the students off of the windows from each floor of Wayside. If the faculty member fails to catch a watermelon, their team is eliminated. The reader is tasked to find each pairing as well as the order of finish, including the floors in which the four losing teams were eliminated.
• an egg toss, where Jenny, Joy, and Todd are entered.
• a somersault race, where Todd is unbeatable - except if Jenny also enters.
• a pie-eating contest, where Joy is unbeatable - except if Jenny also enters.