Maths question - Civil Service is wrong (we now have 100% more threads about the subject)

[Sharingaroomtinightthen]

When I posted late last night I thought I’d get maybe half a dozen replies confirming the question didn’t have the correct answer and advising whether to tell the Civil Service recruiters. But here we are 1000 posts later.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5384347-maths-test-to-think-civil-service-have-it-wrong

Don’t think so. Not for this question. That is why you are getting 125% a non answer btw oh but 450% is a valid answer. I’ll stick with 450%. I can’t make it any simpler than I have. I even used the 50 starting point to try and help me visualise 125% but oh I couldn’t because it’s the wrong answer😂

450% is the correct answer

No. Trebling is a 200% increase.

If you treble the number 1 you get 3.

If you increase the number 1 by 200% you get 3.

Try it on a calculator.

1+200%

1x3

You’ll get the same answer.

You've jumped the shark now spider. 125/225 for effort though

The clue is in the word represents! The key is in the fact that trebling represents a 300% increase.

This is the issue - you fundamentally don’t understand what a percentage increase is.

What - you think the laws of mathematics are somehow subjective?

🤣

There are people who say 450% or 250% or whatever. There are people who say 125%.

And some people say their answer must be right because their answer is one of the options given in the test. Have those people thought about the fact that the question-setter could be anyone on this thread. I mean someone is wrong. So why is the idea that the answers offered might be wrong such a completely incomprehensible thought? I mean you’d like to think the question was checked, but I’m 125% sure someone knocked this up quickly and no checking was done.

@Merryoldgoat you fundamentally don’t understand the question and want 125% to be the answer when it isn’t even an option.

It is clear as day 450% is the answer. You’ve bullied and berated the few with the right answer. But you are wrong.

450% is the correct answer.

On the off chance spider isn't a troll, and ignoring the percentage increase vs percentage of argument...

@Spiderbitebatbite according to your calculations after year 1 the number is 200 and after year 3 the number is 300. Your numbers. But you also think that's a 450% increase? From a sense check perspective, does that not seem wrong to you?

Think of it as a raffle. You pick year 1 out as the first figure. Say you have 10 tickets in the 100-ticket raffle, you now have 99 tickets left and 9 prizes.
Total tickets have now decreased by 1% leaving 99% of tickets left. If the 10th ticket drawn is the top prize, of a trebled circulation for your paper, you now have less chance of winning that prize if your ticket was drawn first. But the 3rd ticket wins the booby prize of a 25% reduced circulation - yet you now have even more chance of winning that, as another ticket was taken out to win the 1st and 2nd prizes.

Your prize was confirmed by email to someone who has stolen your email address but with dots in it, and when you try to email them to tell them, you just get the email back to yourself. There is a 50% chance of that happening, but you have doubled your emails because you both sent and received it (an increase of 100%).

Does that help?

I don’t want it to be 125% - it is.

I do this for a living. I’m an accountant and calculating percentage changes is something I do on a daily basis. If I didn’t know what I was doing it would’ve been discovered by now given my work is scrutinised, analysed, and used to make significant financial decisions every workday.

The question setter either doesn’t understand what a percentage change is, or worded the question incorrectly.

The answer to the question as worded is 125%

It’s entirely possible that the setter intended the answer to be 450% but they asked the wrong question if that’s the case.

@ItsFineReally

100 doubles to 200

As the question states start at 200 in year 2

200 trebles to 600 so a difference of 400 which REPRESENTS a 300% increase this is the starting point HINT the answer must be above 300% it is clear as day and spelt out in the question!

In year 3 there is a 25% DECREASE in circulation so 400 circulated in year 2 so this figure minus 25% is 300

300 is a 150% increase from the starting point of 200

so 300% plus 150% is 450% increase

The correct answer is 450%

In your opinion it is clear as day to me from the trebling word in the question that the starting point makes the answer above 300%.

I don’t care if you are an accountant. You are wrong and you have made fun of the few that have got it right.

The answer is 450%.

Speaking as someone who has been working in finance since 1979, their question is ambiguous and therefore unanswerable without further clarification.

And that would have been my answer.

@Spiderbitebatbite You've not addressed my question. From what you've said previously you think the total circulation figures are:
Yr 1 200
Yr 2 600
Yr 3 300
Is that correct? In your longer written explanation, you seemingly contradict this but these are the numbers you have set out.

Can I ask some questions?

In what way is it ambiguous?

What further clarification would you want?

And how would you give that answer with the radio button options presented?

Ohhh spiderspiderspider. You do not understand what a percentage increase is.

You what? A decrease of a quarter brings the number from 600 to 450, not 300.

Try it with the number 8.

The starting number is 8.

This doubles in year one to 16 - this number is the one the first part of the question asks for.

In year two it trebles to 48.

And then in year three falls by a quarter to 36.

The question is asking for the percentage increase between 16 and 36, which is 125%.

Can you get 450% to fit with the number 8?

100

Starting point is 200 after doubling 100

200
600
300

This is the order.

It is not ambiguous. It is asking for the percentage increase between the end of year one and the end of year three. It’s very clear.

A quarter of 600 is 150. You’re halving it, not reducing it by a quarter.

Ok, so next part of my question. The start point and end point are 200 and 300 respectively. You have calculated this increase as 450%. Does that seem right to you in the context of those figures?

@Sharingaroomtinightthen

8 doubles to 16

As the question states start from here

16
48
24

48-16 is 32 which represents 300%

decreases by 25% which is 32 - 8=24. 24 is 150% increase from the starting point of 16.

so 300% plus 150% is 450%

The answer is 450%

@Spiderbitebatbite
Where are you getting 24 from? IT's a 25% deduction, but you've halved it