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.

15 out of 30 I guess must be 50%? But how

15/30 = ( is the same as) 1/2
what you do to the bottom you do to the top of fraction so divide both by 15
15 divided 15 is 1
30 divided by 15 is 2
so you end up with 1/2
1/2 is same as 1 divided by two which is 0.5
0.5 is five tenths same as 0.50 (or as many zero as you want to add )
or fifty hundredths or 50%

www.khanacademy.org/math/pre-algebra/pre-algebra-ratios-rates/pre-algebra-percent-problems/v/finding-percentages-example

^^ This work through similar problem.

Though I agree best bet is probably to ask someone in RL.

I'm going to say this again as I can see you have got yourself confused (or we have confused you):

/ means divided by (e.g. a half is 1/2)
x means multiply

• also means multiply and tends to be used online so as not to be confusing when doing algebra

A fraction is any number divided by another using the / notation.
So 23/47 or 100/1 or 34564/3748484848

I bet your skills aren't that bad - just really rusty!

I have never liked maths, and never been a natural with figures. However, after years of not doing maths, I found myself one day staring at the number "5" and thinking it was an "s" - like you, this was in a professional context, and even though the instant of misrecognition was only a moment, it made me realise how far I'd moved away from figures of any kind. I did a biology degree a short while later, and I had to go from almost no recall on maths apart from the absolute most basic primary school stuff to doing some fairly complex degree-level stats. It took me a long time to get there, but I made it. If I can do it, anyone can. It's practice and familiarity.

I work out percentages from 10% and then either multiply or divide depending on whether higher or lower than 10%

So 40% is 10% x4 5% is half the value of what 10% is.

It's good to learn basic % fraction and decimal equivalences
e.g.100% = 1/1 = 1.0 = 1 whole
50% = 1/2 = 0.5 = 1 half

No, I’m so sorry, I don’t understand anything And the posts are clear to anyone with half a brain!

Christ, abandon hope all ye who enter here!

Go and sleep on it all and come back tomorrow when you are fresh.

It hasn’t sunk in for thirty seven years; I can’t see one more day suddenly making a difference

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, this is just not one of yours, doesn’t make you any less capable of doing your job unless it involves percentages all day every day.
I can’t rhyme off my times tables, but I know how to work out maths problems by other means which makes me pretty good at helping others who can’t manage the ‘usual way’ either.

Thanks. I get a bit tense when I have to do it. Brings back bad memories

My mind closes up with maths. Only way I can describe it. When I see it written out it or a maths question I tend to freeze. I wished I was better.

Maths is a lot about confidence.
If you have bad experiences and you tense up it's not surprising you are having trouble.
You need to find a sympathetic adult who knows what they are talking about to help you from the point maths started going wrong.

I can’t. They will either be lovely and try to help and I am beyond help or they will think I am utterly ridiculous. I suspect the latter is true!

The way I think about it is as follows (using the example of 7 as a percentage of 25).
step 1 Divide ---> 7 / 25 = 0.28
step 2 Multiply the result by 100 ---> 0.28 * 100 = 28%

That said, also not being cruel, I find it quite surprising that an adult doesn't understand percentages. To me, I would put it on a par with not being able to tell the time

I can tell the time and understand the 24 hour clock! I can do the real basics but harder things I just can’t grasp - numbers baffles me.

Well, I don’t Wyclef. I’m sorry but I really don’t. That might as well have been written in Chinese or something. And I know you’re not being cruel, I know it is me, but really what can I do?

Does it make sense if you expect to live to 80, when you are 40 years old, you are halfway through your life (i.e. 50%)?

It is like when you read those articles that say "imagine the whole lifespan of the universe has been compressed into 100 years. You were born in the 100th year, day 365, at 11.59". It's the same kind of thinking

Yes, but I don’t understand how to work them out!

And there’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza ...

The instructor told the class to add 17.5% to each item, then add them all up. Mother asked if perhaps they could add them first, then add 17.5% to the total. "Oh no," said the instructor in horror. "You'd get a completely different answer."

The instructor was possibly right. When you do money calculations, the intermediate results may get rounded to the nearest penny, so a different procedure can lead to different results.

I invoice the agency I work through monthly, it was only after several years of 1p discrepancies in their payments that I realised I needed to subtotal my amounts by weeks in order to get my invoices to match what their computer felt like paying me. They changed their system recently, I specifically explained the past problem to them and asked them how the new system worked. They said I didn't need to subtotal by week. When the first payment from the new system arrived, it was 6p different from my invoice. I worked out that I now need to subtotal by day, rather than just adding to together all the days for the month. (Most days I work some fraction of the day.)

(In case any wonders why I care, it's because I have to correct my accounts every time there's a mismatch.)

By "subtotal" I mean "subtotal and round to the nearest penny."

Fire suit- I’m baffled just reading that! I’m a lost cause I think !

Exactly, Firesuit - I did say in my post that it would only be a rounding difference, and not "completely different".

I'm still not sure how one of my suppliers calculates its VAT tbh. I was certain you're supposed to apply it to a total invoice but they seem to be applying it to each item before summing. Again, only a few pence, but a PITA when we have to put money on account in advance.

Sorry, didn't read your post properly!

What about the number who think that if you get a 10% pay cut, and later you get a 10% pay increase you'll be back to where you started?

We did have a 20% voucher in a catalogue and if you opened a store card you had 10% off. The two percentages were taken off separately. I spent a lot of time explaining that it did not mean they had 30% off.

I got very good at giving an estimated discount that was slightly under the actual discount without doing the maths though. Couldn't do that now but it has been over 15 years.

percentages - no worries. Long division has rusted solid, I shall look it up.

the problem is twofold - the idea that understanding maths or science makes you a geek (MN is a culprit with this, the whole 'it is feminine to be thick' thing should have gone years ago), and the advantage taken of those who can't do maths. For example:

• the energy switch savings model which is fixed to compare the new price with the high standard tariff. This diverts people from looking at the actual cost of units and standing charges. Electricity unit prices went up 30% in 2016 and about 12% last year. Kept that quiet, didn't they?
• the babble on beauty ads (which are all lies anyway). They talk about high percentages of women (always women..) saying the stinky sludge made a difference. Then there is small print showing that they actually asked about 20 people.
• inflation (which is also a fiddle, didn't show the massive increases in electricity and insurance, two things we all buy). Reducing inflation rate does not mean lower prices, but it is celebrated as if it did.

etc etc etc. Now off to revise long division!