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.

long division is rock bottom basic arithmetic skills. It's not necessary, though. What is necessary is to be able to turn 353/249 into something that you can handle, and know whether you've made the answer bigger or smaller. So instead you work out 350/250 =35/25 = 7/5 = =1.4, and you've made the top smaller and the bottom bigger, so your answer is close but a bit smaller than what you should get on the calculator.

I think the key is using real-life scenarios so that the numbers are brought to life in a way they can relate to. Like so many things, being able to see a purpose that matters to you is a huge help in understanding. I also found that people from different disciplines were amazed that the same maths techniques could be used in both. So it's no wonder that someone learning at school how to calculate, say, the distance a fielder runs to pick up a cricket ball, finds it impossible to envisage that ever being of use in their adult life.

I only really grasped it when I had to work out my own expenses and tax calculations.

I found it easy when I turned the % into a decimal and mulptied by it, so 75% of £80 is 0.75 x £80. An increase of 20% is 1.20 x whatever, etc.

i have always struggled with maths - i did a free course and passed entry level 3 ( somehow!) but anything beyond that i am stuck.
had terrible teachers at school in the 70s and only scrapped a CSE - most of my peers were the same though. i have a mental block about numbers beyond the really easy things - so okay with finances but once they go on about percentages or trying to work out pension forecasts etc, forget it. Dh is an engineer and he said his is a bit better but he still struggles sometimes with the harder elements of it, but he does ' get it' in the end. where i just can't!! i hate being bad at maths.

PI =3.142 😎

kittenbeast
don't get them mixed up 😂

All my maths education was before we went metric (money and everything else) so we spent ages doing pounds, shillings and pence sums, add and subtract, X and division.

Plus having to learn how many yards in a furlong (22?), pounds (weight) in a hundredweight, etc., not to mention all the mental arithmetic tests - two dozen articles at twopence three farthings, etc. (Which wasn't so difficult once you twigged that a dozen @ a penny came to one shilling, and @ a farthing came quarter of that, I.e.3d.

Funnily enough, I remember people saying how children's maths skills would improve enormously once they didn't have to spend so much time on £SD, lbs and ozs, feet and yards, etc.

My head is spinning now.

I still don’t understand. This is not anybody’s poor explanations. It is my poor understanding.

I have to ask my brother to do mine Abra

primrosesandmaths I suspect it's because you've had too many different explanations. Theree's always several different ways of looking at something, but if you try all of them at once you'll get in a muddle.

One theoretical advantage that those of use who learnt £sd, lbs, ft and in and so one have is that the concept of binary arithmetic should be incredibly straight forward. Except at my school binary was taught as something new and strange, and I expect this happened elsewhere too.

And of course anyone who can cope with secs and mins (base 60), hours and days (base 24) should find base 2 a doddle. So using base 20,12 and 4 in your money doesn't give any extra advantage.

I have been trying to do it all morning and now I am typing my resignation!

OP. To check understanding. You can't just 'find something as a percentage' you have to 'find something as a percentage of something else '

So 32 respondents to this thread say they can't do maths. What is that as a percentage

You find it as a fraction
32/136 (which is equal to 4/17)

Then turn the fraction into a percentage simply by multiplying by 100

4/17 x 100 = 400/17 =~23.7% (or something like that)

Sorry I should have said for clarity 32/136 x 100 ~ 23.7%, ignore my simplification of the fraction.

Sorry, could you try that again a bit slower?

So 12 out of 25 is what as a %?

I teach Functional Maths and it astounding how many join me at 16/17 years old unable to do really basic things such as find a % or find a simple fraction of an amount. It seems that the school curriculum ploughs onwards through the years regardless of understanding. Many less academic or dyslexic learners leave hating learning and school and especially Maths. They also seriously lack the ability to read a problem based question logically and apply a sequence to their thinking to reach a credible answer. The other thing which is a common gap in their knowledge is understanding the metric system and the relationship between mm, cm, m and kms etc.

If you are parents of younger pupils, try to do this stuff at home a bit if they are not great at Maths as they will only have to redo it once they leave school since they have to be in education or training of some kind until 18 now. The Government expects every young person to be working for level 2 awards in Maths and English which is the rough equivalent of a grade C or 4.

It's not socially unacceptable to ditzily claim "Oh, I'm so bad at Maths, I'm awful!!"

In classrooms, there tends to be just one method taught according to which teacher has had which training.

There is a complete lack of specialist science and maths teachers which isn't helping.

Watching this video, I actually learned two new ways of multiplication.

If the basics were ground into children first, instead of just the times tables, then it would be less stressful later on.

12/25 x 100 which is 48%

12 out of 25 is what as a percentage?

means

12 ÷ 25 = x %
12 ÷ 25 = x ÷ 100

Multiply both sides by 100 - This is easy because 25 × 4 = 100 so lots cancels out

12 ÷ 25 × 25 x 4 = x ÷ 100 × 100
So x = 48 and therefore 12 is 48 % of 25.

12/25 x 100
= 12x100 / 25 (you can do it in any order)
= 1200/25
= 48

There are easier ways simplifying first, but that is the essence.

Where do the fractions come over it though?

So, say, 7 out of 25 would be

7/25 x 100

But how do I work out what to do?

Sorry, I’m not trying to be awkward about this. I really do struggle.

What does x mean?

It is really hard trying to explain via message boards.
I wish I had you sat next to me.
Khan Academy is meant to be good.

12/25 x 100 which is 48%

Technically you should say

12/25 x 100 % which is 48 %

100% is 1 - You can multiply anything by 1 without changing it.

Percentages are tricksy though. My basics maths are shit hot (I went through the french education system!) but I still have to go back to basics in my head every time I work out percentages. Think of a percentage as just a proportion out of one hundred. So to work out any given percentage, you divide whatever total number you have into one hundred pieces, then multiply by whatever percentage you want to get. So 10% of 422 is 422 divided by 100, 4.22, then multiplied by 10, so 42.2.

Ignore me, multiply. Sorry.

Okay. So.

7 x 25 = 175
175 x 25 = 4375

Well that can’t be right; even I can see that!

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/maths/number/percentagesrev1.shtml

Finding percentages
A percentage is a fraction of 100.
30% (30 in each 100) as a fraction is 30/100

30% as a decimal is 0.3.

Often, in real life - and maths exams - you must find a percentage of a quantity. First, write the percentage as a fraction or a decimal, then multiply by the quantity.

There are lots of questions with answers to work through.

It goes onto next page to Percentage increase and decrease in case that's what you need instead.