Which One is Harder?

A] Rachel has 7 gumdrops. Finn gives her some more gumdrops. Now Rachel has 11 gumdrops. How many gumdrops did Finn give Rachel?

OR

B] Rachel had 4 gumdrops. Finn gave her 7 more gumdrops. How many gumdrops does Rachel have now?

So, I bet you're thinking that they are both easy, and one is not harder than the other. Well, my friend, you're wrong. :) With love, of course. Actually, 'A' is technically harder than 'B' because of the wording of the word problem. You can go ahead and look again. z

Okay, now for problem 'B', figure out the problem in as many different ways as possible.
There are four different strategies to figure out the problem (and the above problem for that matter):

1. The first strategy is direct model which is you do the problem EXACTLY in the order of the problem. So for 'B', you would count out 4 gumdrops and then another 7 gumdrops and add them all together.
2. The second on is counting strategy. For this one you would start with 4 (you see you're not counting out 4, you're already starting off with the 4) and adding 7 more gumdrops.
3. The third one is called derived fact. So an example of this is 7+3=10 +1=11. I know, confusing. Here's another example, 4+6=10+1=11.
4. And the last is recall. It's kind of like mental math. But, you are doing the above strategies in your head.

So what's the answer for problem 'B'?

If you answered 11, congrats! You deserve a gold star. :)