How would you answer this test question? From a 1st grade Common Core test.

[DireStrike]

112. It depends what is being taught and at what level

I could see questions like this on a single quirky low-stakes test in junior high, to get kids to think outside the box.

Basic arithmetic is something that first graders need to memorize, not understand in the appropriate mathematical theory context. When I buy a full box of items at costco, about half the cashiers are not able to multiply a column by a row to get the full number. Others try to do it and get stuck on really easy ones like 3x12. Basic arithmetic skills are not getting through. We should not be complicating the teaching of the lowest level of math in order to make higher order math easier. The failure in our system has to do with not engaging kids properly, not failing to use the proper theoretical framework to discuss basic operations.

Aside from that, I question:

-The efficacy of this method. Is there any proof that teaching arithmetic this way actually leads to better understanding of either arithmetic or algebra? Could we maybe just... introduce the concept of basic algebra sooner? It's the same thing, but everyone else already knows what algebra is and how to talk about it. But this just generally isn't done because...
-The age at which this is being taught. I am not an educator, but I'm not entirely sure first graders are familiar enough with the relationships between various sets of numbers to begin thinking of them in a theoretical framework. Some people struggle with algebra in 9th grade, and this seems to me to be just a more confusing way to do basic algebraic equations.