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Mon, May 18, 2009

Children are our future

• Post categories: Omni, Rant, My Life

Boy, are we screwed!

I was supervising a maths exam today. One of the questions asked for 90 out of 600 to be expressed as a percentage.

90/600 as a percent.

There's a clue in the name: Per cent. Per hundred.

If there's NINETY in SIX hundred, there's HOW MANY per ONE hundred?

How hard is it to DIVIDE BY SIX??

The most common answer I saw for this question was "3/20". I didn't see one single person write the correct answer.

I went through the exam paper at the start of the exam. It took about 15 minutes and I'd have been embarrassed to not score 100% on it. If I'd been handed that exam paper when I'd been 16, I'd have been insulted.

What the hell is going ON in this country??

7 comments » •

7 comments

Comment from: Krazy Kitty [Visitor] · http://amrhaps.net/english

I felt insulted when I saw the math part of the GRE (standardized math exam required to enter graduate school -- whatever the field, but I'm assuming even historians have to deal with fractions from time to time, if only when paying their taxes). It looks like it's similar to what you describe.

I am still trying to understand how come my labmates (PhD students in computer science) didn't all get a 100% score. I like to think it's because they didn't care enough.

19/05/09 @ 03:42

Comment from: oneandoneis2 [Member] · http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/

I like to think that too.. because the alternative's horrifying! :o)

19/05/09 @ 13:18

Comment from: sokuban [Member]

Chances are it's not that these people were stupid, but they didn't read through the question and hurriedly tried to put an answer. (Often times time is precious in these kinds of exams.)

I might have even made the same mistake if I wrote that exam. (Note that I am very bad at math.)

19/05/09 @ 13:22

Comment from: Tina [Visitor]

This maybe true for the GRE - I hated those exams and got bored halfway through them, stopped bothering with them and took up teaching - but with the kids taking this exam it is genuinely because they are that stupid. I weep for the future, for I teach it.

Sorry, Dom, that you have to invigilate it, but I've had to put up with them for FOUR years.... and I swear they've gone backwards, at least in the first place they used to bring a pen...

20/05/09 @ 21:00

Comment from: Tim W [Visitor]

That would be the aqa foundation tier paper then.

It's supposed to be easy - otherwise how could they meet the targets that everyone should get 5 Cs

21/05/09 @ 16:45

Comment from: JMacGill [Visitor] · http://www.jmacgill.com

It's been years since I've done long division in my head. I almost forgot how to divide a larger number into a smaller one but after much straining to remember how do do it in my head, I came up with %15. I still haven't checked with a calculator but is is %15 right?

28/05/09 @ 03:36

Comment from: JMacGill [Visitor] · http://www.jmacgill.com

HA, right after I sent the comment, I realized that 10% of 600 is 60 and half that would be 30 (5%) so 60+30=90 = %15. I didn't even have to do the long division. This sadly reminds me that I need to use my brain more

28/05/09 @ 03:40

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Children are our future

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