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

I really hope spider is trolling now. This thread just keeps on giving.

They also need to use a comma after the fronted adverbial.

Why is it the posters offering the longest, wordiest, most rambling explanations always come up with the wrong answer?

Err I don’t follow that!

The answer is 125, I’m happy with that, I’m just suggesting the numbers look easier to deal with if you start with 50!

As question states start at 100 after doubling 50

What does this mean? Where does the question state to start at 100?

(Answer: it doesn't.)

the increase in circulation from 200 to 600 is a 400 increase in circulation which represents a 300% increase this means the final answer must be above 300%

No, it's a 200% increase.

Next year circulation decreases by 25% so 400-100=300

This is correct.

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

No, 300 is 150% of 200, not an increase of 150%. They are not the same thing.

You have not understood how to work this out AT ALL.

all you sheep can keep harping on about it being 125 % it won’t change the fact you are wrong and the glaringly obvious exclusion of this even being an option to pick says it all.

Are you by any chance also a conspiracy theorist? 🤔

Yes, I was about to pick up on "Not for this question" as well.

It's quite astonishing.

I guess it's entirely possible the question setter wanted the answer to be 42, or "To get to the other side," given that none of the possibilities they've provided is actually correct!

Seriously though, I suspect the question has been tweaked at some point and they forgot to amend the answers.

It is ambiguous.

'The next year circulation trebled' - treble what? Is it treble the base figure at the beginning of year one (on which the first year's 100% increase is calculated), or treble the sales being achieved by the end of year one? One can assume they mean the latter, but the wording does not make it clear.

Er, "fracturing in"??

WTF does that mean?

Another interesting tangent raised by this thread is that, despite troll hunting being prohibited by Mumsnet, sometimes trolling is the most parsimonious explanation. Maybe time to reconsider the rules?

The next year the circulation trebled. That’s year 2 in the question. (Start of year 2 figure) x 3.

Last year you got a 20% pay rise, from £10 to £12 an hour. Next year you’re getting a 10% pay rise. Does that take you to £11 an hour?

I don’t really understand trolling, and can’t always spot it. On another forum, a much more complicated maths question arose. It was not ambiguous, but was admittedly counterintuitive and relied on advanced Bayesian conditional statistics. One poster, under their real name, persisted for - literally - years with the wrong solution. They seemed blind to the obvious flaws in their reasoning. We had a long and friendly correspondence on the thread, and I think they eventually died none the wiser. I am sure they were genuine.

This is "trolling" in the classic sense... of derailing an existing conversation by posting not in good faith.

I think MN "trolling" means the modern sense of just making stuff up, usually in an OP. In those cases you are supposed to report to MN and not say on the thread "this sounds made-up".

There is of course the 3rd sense of "bullying" but that doesn't really apply here.

I did wonder this... you could argue that maybe if it went from 100 to 200 it doubled, and then trebled by going to 300. It's unlikely - but a possible reading.

So
100 to 200
300
225

However- you would end up with an increase of 25% so that doesn't explain it!

Treble Increase from 200 to 600 is 400 which represents 300% increase in year 2.

No, it's a 200% increase.

25% decrease in year 3 so 400 minus 25 % is 300 which is an increase of 150% from year 2 starting point of 200.

It's the circulation that decreases (600), not the previous year increase (400). So 600-25% = 450, which is 125% increase on 200.

300% plus 150 % equals 450%

Using your logic with the correct numbers you get 200+125 = 325

But the logic is flawed because you've added (y1 to y2 increase) + (y1 to y3 increase), so you've double counted y1 to y2 increase.

Let's take it out again and see what we get, shall we?
325-200=125
Fancy that!

OP, what’s the timeline with this? Days/weeks/months? I ask as it took me five months from interview to starting in one job!

How is that a 25% increase?

😂😂😂😂

Treble the circulation of the previous year. It’s crystal clear.

This far in, how come no one has yet worked out the correct answer ?

Which is, of course, "Blue".

I honestly don’t know. Depends if I get an interview I suppose.

It's because we are all sheep who can't think of maths as a creative subject.

And to be so confident that you're correct!

Also, why does @Spiderbitebatbite keep saying "as the question states" when it doesn't state anything of the sort?