to be surprised a third of adults cant calculate change?

[darkriver198868]

www.theweek.co.uk/92326/one-in-three-english-adults-stumped-by-everyday-maths

This has surprised me to be honest.

It doesn’t surprise me at all. As a Trump and Brexit demonstrated, there are a very large number of very thick people in the world.

Some people who consider themselves reasonably well educated appear to think it socially acceptable to admit they are functionally innumerate (I’m completely rubbish at maths, ha! ha!). They wouldn’t think admitting to being semi-literate was funny, would they?

NotUmbongoUnchained

It’s ok rose I forgive you. You’ve proven time and time again you’re not brightest button.

Many mathematicians are good calculus and crap at arithmetic. Or vice versa. It’s quite well known.

Hmmm. I remain unconvinced. Did you attend an ancient or a RG to read for your degree!?

...an RG...

Also I think this is going to become
A complete dying art as we go cashless as a society (I have only carried cash very rarely for the last 10 years) as with, as a PP pointed out, being able to tell the time from a clock rather than digital display

DH can’t. He was failed by the educational system as a child though, as in the 80s he was deemed a naughty child and shoved into a SS until GSCE years where he was pushed into MS and failed them all.

He has ADHD, and if he went through school now, would have so much more help and acceptance. There are many adults like him who were failed as children and not given the education they were capable of.

Did you attend an ancient or a RG to read for your degree!?

I can’t decide if this comment is hilarious, cringy, stupid as fuck or all 3 really

NotUmbongoUnchained

Some vital words missing from your post, by the way. You must have banged that out in a fury of haste!! (Not the brightest button etc... Lol)

I'm not surprised by this, I have worked as a cashier before and people often gave me incorrect change while attempting to give me exact change.

I think it would be much more useful to learn what pairs of numbers add up to 100 (70+30, 60+40, etc.) than this forced rote learning of times tables you get.

Number bonds are taught very early in Maths. Before times tables.

The one that always gets me is when you give a shop assistant 'the odd' money. E.g. something costs £3.12 and you give them a fiver,then hand them the odd 12 pence after they've rung in 5 pounds. The number of times I've seen shop staff struggle to work out what change to give me. Or even worse,they refuse to take 'the odd' because 'I've rung it in now'. I was always under the impression that it didn't matter what you rung in on a till,as long as you gave the right change for what you'd been given.

@smeaton

Screw you mathematics is very hard to hear from someone who’s username is famous engineer

Literacy is equally poor:

[https://literacytrust.org.uk/information/what-is-literacy/]

England : 1 in 7 (14.9% / 5.1 million people) adults in England lack basic literacy skills.
Scotland : 1 in 4 (26.7% / 931,000 people) adults in Scotland experience challenges due to their lack of literacy skills.
Wales: 1 in 8 (12% / 216,000 people) adults in Wales lack basic literacy skills.
Northern Ireland: 1 in 5 (17.9% / 550,000 people) adults in Northern Ireland lack basic literacy skills.

www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/what-issue

You'll have to open the link as it's a graph, between 2003 and 2011, the numeracy rate has dropped from 26% to 22% of the adult population.

I've had the cashier refusing to take 12p when the till shows £1.88 change scenario, but last week's took the biscuit. The cashier rung in that I gave them a £20 instead of £10 note. They then wanted me to sign the receipt to say the change was correct???

My sisters uni building is named after him haha

I can believe Umbongos' intelligence profile. People are always going to be good at different things. I'm terrible at maths and logic. My brain can't hold the concepts and goes like cotton wool. Then I panic and can't understand anything at all! But I'm really good at mental arithmetic. I don't know why, I just always have been. I don't think they're the same kind of skill really.

Einstein was bad at arithmetic.

No he wasn't he failed an entrance exam that was in french, specifically the language assessment, not the maths part....

Even if you pay by card, it’s useful to be able to do the arithmetic yourself. That way when the cashier rings up the wrong price (Costa seem to manage to try to overcharge me regularly, for example), you can say that you don’t think it’s right.

I learnt it all, but definitely out of practice. I do know generally. If I needed to do mental arithmetic regularly I would become quicker.

People do seem to laugh off a lack of basic maths skills in a way you never would literacy skills. No ever goes ‘oh silly me I’m just so hopeless at reading it goes right over my head’. Why are people so complacent about lacking really rudimentary maths skills. I don’t accept it’s about different intelligence levels. We’re talking primary school maths here not advanced calculus.

I've always struggled with mental maths. Did in school and still do now. If I'm given time I can work it out but I get really anxious if I'm put under pressure.

We're all good/bad at different things. I choose not to judge someone for being bad at something I may be good at because they have a skill elsewhere that is value to them.

I regularly deal with questions from students who cannot work out their final mark for a module with more than one assessment. The vast majority of them cannot do it with a 70/30 split, but many can’t work it out when it’s a 50/50 split. Or when there are 3 assignments each worth 1/3 of the mark. Often they have absolutely no idea how to even go about working it out. These are students with at least a C in GCSE maths, taken fairly recently.

I also read essay written by people who genuinely don’t understand that 40% is not ‘most of’.