To be slightly horrified at how poor my basic skills are?

[primrosesandmaths]

In my professional, graduate profession, I have just been told I have to work out something as a percentage.

I have no idea how to do it.

I shall google - it isn’t an advice thread as such, but my maths is just dire and I can’t help wondering if this is common or whether I am an imposter in my role.

I also just want to say a word in praise of trig and pythagorass theorem. I dont think it is useless at all, even if you dont use it in your day to day life. Its a life skill that most people should at least know the basis

Yes please! I’m a bit shocked by the suggestion that the GCSE syllabus should skew to the everyday/practical (though I’d argue trig is practical!)

We have a huge shortage of mathematicians, engineers, and scientists of all kinds in this country. We need to equip vastly more people with advanced maths at school, not fewer. According to the curriculum even Pythagoras isn’t part of the basic foundations to GCSE (its in the ‘advanced foundation’ column?) - I was really shocked by that.

I did secondary school in a different country. Maths was compulsory to A level equivalent (we did 6 subjects though) - but there were 3 maths subjects - one was practical/business focused, one was the theoretical subject, and the third was the really advanced stuff, done alongside the second. I think an extra two years of learning made a huge difference to the basic skills level and also to culture - maths as something useful and necessary and valued, not something to suffer through and ditch at the earliest opportunity.

Ten pages later and I am none the wiser! I am sorry; I am hopeless. I am going to have to confess, I think.

Jassy DD 10's learning about triangles, how can they not cover Pythagoras's theorem? I've taught it to her anyway.

Ooh, bunnies —more my sort of thing—

Can’t even do a fucking strike through on MN

Do you understand that when we talk of percentages, it must be about one number in relation to another?

E.g. 10 as a percentage of 100.

What percentage is 1 of 100? You probably intuitively know it is 1%

Why?

Because 1 divided by 100 = 0.01.

0.01 is equivalent to 1% (multiply by 100)
0.02 is equivalent to 2%
0.03 is equivalent to 3%

So what is 14 as a percentage of 70?

14 divide by 70 is 0.20.

0.20 is equivalent to 20%

See?

Perfectly, that’s a relief, I definitely learned it at that age! Maybe it’s a quirk of the examination system?

I’ve been quite impressed with DS1’s year 1 maths teaching so far - teaching them the proper names for eg vertices and planes now, when they’re first teaching shapes. At first I was a little taken aback and then I realised that by making the kids comfortable with mathematical terms from the start, they’re less likely to seem scary/impenetrable than if they first encounter them when older.

So to work out 37 of 80 I would have to divide 37 by 80?

So to work out 37 of 80 I would have to divide 37 by 80?

Yes, so what is 37 as a percentage of 80?

0.4625? That can’t be right.

Why not?

If 0.01 is equivalent to 1%, what is 0.4625 as a percentage?

46?

And then multiply by a hundred to give the percent (because percent is ‘out of 100).

So you’ve got 46.25%

I think you’ve cracked it.

Only took 48 hours. Wyclef deserves an award for services to stupid pricks

Yes!

You've done two things

1. Divide 37 by 80
2. Multiply that result by 100

You get 46%

Does that make sense?

You do know I’ll have forgotten that by midday, right?

www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/percentages

It does look like you've got it - the above website might be another to check out in future to brush up on basic maths for future.

No you won't.

Can you work it backwards?

What is 46% of 80?

1. 46% is equivalent to 0.46 (divide 46 by 100)
2. Multiply 80 by that result ---> 0.46 X 80 = 36.8 (just shy of 37)

How is it possible not to be able to do basic percentages as an adult?

When you are in a clothes shop that says 20% of everything, can you not work out how much an item will be? Or work out a tip? Or check your taxes, or vat, or any of the many things you need to do a percentage for?

I don't get it.

It can be confusing if you don’t know why you are doing the division.

You have two numbers, one represents the whole, the other one is a fraction of it. To work out what the fraction is you the first by the second. This tells you how the two relate to each other, or how the part relies to the whole.

The whole is your 100% so you multiply your first result by 100 and there you are.

Sorry if this comes across as patronising, it’s absolutely not meant to be.

Explaining things we do without thinking is really hard.

What happends to those of us who were always useless at maths and actually feel like they have some kind of dyscalculia? I've never bene formally diagnosed but I'm sure I do have some kind of mental block when it comes to maths. English and the arts were always my forte and came easily/naturally unlike maths which I had to work really hard at, even with practice.

Even at GCSE level 20 years ago, I struggled in the bottom set / class of maths at a top grammar school. I'm sure the teacher despaired of us all looking blankly at her each lesson while she taught us problems broken down into step-by-step instructions like she was teaching 5 year olds!

My DD OTOH is naturally very quick and gifted at maths at aged 7. Her mental arithmetic is brilliant and she regularly does the sums on Countdown which always makes me feel like at least she can actually DO maths and enjoy it. It's such a relief she inherited both good maths and English skills from me and DH - I would have hated for her to be as crap at maths as me.

I have a friend who is a maths teacher, and I found it interesting to talk with her about the different theories to help people learn maths skills, especially when it seems so intuitive once you understand it. I remember having a long discussion about fractions.

noonoo, same here and thank goodness for MN as i think i am weird not getting numbers or understanding how it all works beyond the basics.
my maths teachers were very patronising and made me feel worse about it all - i used to sit there in despair. the course i did for free 7 years ago now was good as the tutor was lovely and took time to explain things - i still struggled though. i think that a lot of people do, but just don't admit it. I can remember my times tables though which is weird. percentages i just can't get to grips with.

Everyone has blind spots.

Of course, Countdown is sums or arithmetic, and way away from real mathematics, which is all about concepts and ideas. Hence my earlier comment that uni maths was easier than O-level. More about linking together concepts, and throwing away things you'd always believed to be true and opening your mind to strange ideas. And nice names like the "ham sandwich theorem" and the "shaggy dog theorem".

It's interesting to read "the Music of the Primes" by Marcus de Sautoy. It's not an easy read once you're more than half way through, but it is opening a vision on to a world that is almost impossible to imagine.