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Title: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: Chef Ramsay on March 31, 2015, 03:24:37 AM Shock and surprise are often the responses I get when I tell my university peers that I studied maths at A-level. As a History student – and a female – it often doesn’t seem to compute that I chose to study a science alongside my humanities A-levels.
It certainly wasn’t due to any sort of passion for the subject: for me it was purely a tactical decision. Not only would maths be useful to me in boosting logical thinking and helping with everyday activities, it also looked more appealing to future employers. Indeed, new statistics revealed by YouGov seem to have confirmed my decision, revealing that a third of adults want to improve their numeracy and everyday maths skills. The survey, commissioned by National Numeracy, revealed a number of reasons why adults in the UK feel the need to improve their numeracy with 37 per cent stating that they wanted to manage their finances better. Of the parents asked, 46 per cent indicated that their primary motive was a desire to better help their children with tasks such as homework. Other reasons included improving activities such as cooking and DIY (26 per cent) and being able to better understand statistics in the media (25 per cent). More...https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/how-good-are-your-math-skills/ (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/how-good-are-your-math-skills/) Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: nsimmons on March 31, 2015, 05:50:23 AM Seriously basic arithmetic, with the simplest possible simultaneous equations. This is grade 8 math (13 year olds) at best. Even the sum of squares polynomial was pre-factored. I helped a relative study for her gcse math test years ago, I couldn't believe how rudimentary it was.
Where I live the local high school math courses have become so degraded the community colleges won't accept them as prerequisites for calculus any more. An A in math 12 places a student at the beginning of a 3 course algebra/trig/precalc sequence. My step sister was able to pass math 12 by doing a project about 5 years ago. Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: NUFCrichard on March 31, 2015, 06:20:35 AM Shock and surprise are often the responses I get when I tell my university peers that I studied maths at A-level. As a History student – and a female – it often doesn’t seem to compute that I chose to study a science alongside my humanities A-levels. If you ever play darts or snooker, you will know how innumerate most people are! It certainly wasn’t due to any sort of passion for the subject: for me it was purely a tactical decision. Not only would maths be useful to me in boosting logical thinking and helping with everyday activities, it also looked more appealing to future employers. Indeed, new statistics revealed by YouGov seem to have confirmed my decision, revealing that a third of adults want to improve their numeracy and everyday maths skills. The survey, commissioned by National Numeracy, revealed a number of reasons why adults in the UK feel the need to improve their numeracy with 37 per cent stating that they wanted to manage their finances better. Of the parents asked, 46 per cent indicated that their primary motive was a desire to better help their children with tasks such as homework. Other reasons included improving activities such as cooking and DIY (26 per cent) and being able to better understand statistics in the media (25 per cent). More...https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/how-good-are-your-math-skills/ (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/how-good-are-your-math-skills/) As it is basically unnecessary to do any calculations in your head for most activities, people just lose the ability to do it. I think the adult classes are a good thing, even though I doubt they are really maths, rather numeracy. Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: Beliathon on March 31, 2015, 02:30:44 PM Good enough to divest from fiat scrip.
Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: zcxvbs on March 31, 2015, 04:10:45 PM I'm confident that I'm good at it more than most of you, because I'm graduated in China.
Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: sed on March 31, 2015, 04:20:32 PM I think it's important to distinguish between "calculation", which is what is often called "math" in popular discourse, and true math, which is more about logic and symbol manipulation. A friend of mine gave this example to try to illustrate the contrast: if someone asks you for a decimal representation of the square root of 2, that is a calculation problem. For true math, √2 is a perfectly good (if not preferred) representation of this value. Sorry I'm being a little terse, but do you know what i mean?
Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: criptix on March 31, 2015, 05:29:54 PM I'm confident that I'm good at it more than most of you, because I'm graduated in China. You are such a racist ;) Title: Re: How Good are Your Math Skills? Post by: moko666 on March 31, 2015, 11:37:52 PM i am good enough to calculate for my personal requirements
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