|
Forums >
Off-Topic Discussion >
Simple Math
My experience last night at Zaxby's... Cashier: That'll be $16.81 Me: Ok (hands her a $20 bill and a penny) Cashier:... Me:... Cashier: That's $16.81 Me: Yes. I know. I gave you $20.01. I should get back $3.20 Cashier: (proceeds to enter the cash tendered) Cashier: Oh... Cashier: Your change is $3.20. Thank you, your order number is 72. Me:(walks away shaking my head) Sometimes I weep for this country. Jun 03 17 06:09 am Link A Thousand Words wrote: Believe me: it's not better over here in good old Europe... Jun 03 17 06:14 am Link Yeah well,I am really bad at math.sometimes. I zone out with simple arithmetic. but I really don't care... I look at it like health....due to advancements in science we live longer due to technology. I don't feel guilty about that. so...I have a calculator. it covers me with my lacking math skills. lol I admire convenience store workers...who are so good at math they somehow seemingly have the correct change ready after a purchase when I cant see how they even saw what bill I was about to give them  Jun 03 17 06:39 am Link Yeah, I blame the invention of the calculator. Jun 03 17 07:54 am Link When peole do drug dosage calculations and get it wrong is when I really worry...or when we can't count votes to know who to hand nuclear weapons capability to! Jun 03 17 07:59 am Link FFantastique wrote: Smart pharmacists always double check dosage math with an abacus! Jun 03 17 10:15 am Link Looknsee Photography wrote: Blame it? I LOVE it. I love anything that does the work for me. Jun 03 17 11:02 am Link They added the amount tendered function for a reason. It was amazing (still is) how many people can't make change with out it. I have the same experience when explaining the metric system or decimal feet to someone. Can you make change for a dollar? For a hundred? It is the same! Jun 03 17 11:06 am Link Sad but true story I'm sure. I had a similar experience not too long ago, at McDonalds of all places... Cheeseburger and small fries... "That's 13.50 please..." "I don't think that's correct." ...turns screen towards me, points at the $13.50 total... I point out that the cheeseburger is about a buck and the fries are about a buck and a half... Confusion... followed by slow dawning of realization that maybe she punched something in wrong... I honestly don't know what my expression was, but I assume it conveyed what I was thinking, which was a mixture of incredulity and sadness over the state of education these days. Jun 03 17 11:25 am Link Tony From Syracuse wrote: As long as the battery works... I admire convenience store workers...who are so good at math they somehow seemingly have the correct change ready after a purchase when I cant see how they even saw what bill I was about to give them That's mental calculation. "Mathematics" starts somewhere between two dimensional geometry and integral calculus...;-) DespayreFX wrote: That's the reason why good knowledge in mental calculation is definitely a big plus. Jun 03 17 11:26 am Link I'm super simple and hate digging for coins in my pockets. It's not uncommon for me to come home with literally a pocket full of change. Here's what my counter looks like. And, I have 5 large "Folgers" containers of this stuff.   Jun 03 17 03:50 pm Link Black Z Eddie wrote: Life can get easier, Eddie - I have the same habit and had the same big cans of coins. Finally got sick of it and bought a coin wrapping kit that came with some cylinders to fit pennies, nickels, etc. I started pitching my pocket of coins in the right cylinders and wrapping them when they got full. When I got enough rolls, off to the bank I go. Easy peasey. Jun 03 17 04:04 pm Link A Thousand Words wrote: I had a Biology professor with a PhD who didn't know how to calculate a percentage. Granted, math wasn't the focus of her studies but she has to figure out percentages at least 3 times per year and the formula for figuring out a percentage is pre-algebra. Jun 03 17 04:19 pm Link Teachers said, "You have to know math because you won't be carrying around a calculator." They were wrong. Jun 04 17 07:53 am Link Ha ha! Jun 04 17 08:40 am Link I read Jane Eyre and Catcher in the Rye when I was 9 years old. I memorized entire Tennyson poems in 5th and 6th grade and could recite the Gettysburg Address by heart. I could also tell you how many people were killed, wounded or captured at all the major Civil War battles, on each side. I was deemed "academically gifted" when I was in 4th grade; when they gave me my AG test at 9 years old, the administering person showed me photos of a wine bottle and a beer bottle and asked me what those things had in common. I said, "They are both alcoholic beverages," and I remember seeing his eyebrow raise. But I struggled desperately with math as a child, and that led to problems with science classes in middle school when calculations became a part of science study. I was a smart little kid, with an absurdly good memory for song lyrics, poems and historical facts. Absolutely nothing about numbers made sense to me. It was like someone held up a page of Russian in front of me and asked me to read it. That was especially how it felt when I got to 7th grade and being on the "gifted" track meant you had to take advanced Maths in other to get advanced Everything Else. My teacher that year passed me with a 70 each term, even though all my other grades were in the high 90s. That was the early 90s and people talked about stuff like Dyslexia and difficulties reading, but no one had heard of kids who had disproportionately low abilities in maths. As a senior in high school, I made a spectacular score on the language part of my SAT, and a positively awful score on the maths part. I easily completed an English degree from a four year university, and tested out of the first year or two of English classes. I was taking 400 level writing courses as a sophomore in college, but I barely passed my "life skills math" class required as the minimum maths class to progress from freshman year to sophomore. My math skills have improved as I've aged, but I still struggle. People act like you're dumb when you can't figure out simple change without a calculator, but I can look at a map of Africa for 15 minutes and then remember each country clearly in my mind for the next couple weeks. I can remember obscure statistical information that no one gives a crap about, as long as it's written out in words and not on a graph. I can read an entertaining article on BuzzFeed, then remember the exact words the writer used to describe a certain cultural phenomenon, as well as the picture they selected to go with it. I remember license plate numbers that pass me on the highway and on what month, day and year I met all my best friends. I remember what their faces looked like the first time I talked to them, and what the weather was like. But I can't, for the life of me, tell you what 15% of 33 is. Jun 04 17 09:33 am Link During my freshman year of high school I took Algebra 1. Passed it with a D. Sophomore year it was Plane Geometry. Also passed with a D. Junior year - Algebra 2. The first 6 weeks were a review of Algebra 1. I got straight F's. Luckily for me, I moved to a different state and they only required 2 years of math,, so I doubled up on history courses. My math skills have improved over the years as well. I can do fractions and percentages in my head now. But, I was always able to make simple change. That girl looked at me like I grew another head when I handed her the money. Of course, it could just be that I'm an old fart. Jun 04 17 09:57 am Link Many people find math to be one of the most difficult things to learn. Basic addition and subtraction is relatively simple, and I think everyone should be able to do that much without a calculator. Since those are everywhere today, perhaps what's needed after the basic addition and subtraction is taught in grade school, is to teach how to properly use a calculator and not even worry about the higher stuff. Jun 04 17 10:13 am Link MatureModelMM wrote: What we NEED to learn in school, rather than advanced algebra, is how to fill out tax forms, how to balance a checkbook, how to take out a loan and how to understand when loans are scams. We need to be taught stuff like how to build credit, use and manage a credit card and how to figure out what all the numbers mean when we go to buy a car. Jun 04 17 10:16 am Link MatureModelMM wrote: One of the things that learning math is supposed to teach us isn't actually how to do math. It's supposed to train our brains to do critical thinking. At least, that's the theory. Jun 04 17 01:37 pm Link A Thousand Words wrote: I have excellent critical thinking skills, but they did not come from math. They came from writing research papers, requiring a thesis supported by research, when I was in high school and college. Jun 04 17 01:49 pm Link I've always been fairly good at math, algebra, trig, calculus, etc... but what gets me sometimes is the simplest things like mentally doing currency conversions in my head on the fly when the rates are really whacky... You're in a market or something, and you're haggling with a vendor you have to sort of keep up and realize what the numbers mean... like someplace like Zambia where there are 9,300 Zambian Kwacha to the dollar. You're like "how much for this little wooden monkey carving"? They say "it can be yours for only 139,500 Kwacha... and for another 111,000 Kwacha we'll toss in this tee-shirt!". I'm left there scratching my head for a minute trying to figure the logical approach, which would be to say "ok, that's roughly 250,000 Kwacha, and there are roughly 10,000 to the dollar... so that's roughly $25". Jun 04 17 03:30 pm Link Counting change is a simple thing. When I worked at Domino's Pizza, there were many who couldn't do it without a calculator. Depending on what a person ordered, their order would come to $18.96. Given a $20 bill, they couldn't calculate that the change was $1.04. Sad, IMO. Jun 04 17 05:10 pm Link You should see what happens in a restaurant when the cash register system shuts down. Servers can't take orders, cashiers can't count back change. The world in that corner over the universe shuts down. Jun 04 17 05:37 pm Link I had to take basic math all through school and often needed help with it. I had to take remedial math in college, in a field that had significant math and the rest was science. I barely got through math. My statistics instructor passed me without a grade to support being passed. I remember taking another statistics course related to my degree and failing miserably. The night before the final, I had given up but laid on the floor and kept reading. I don't know why, but all of a sudden, I understood. I failed anyway, but passed with a high B the following semester. Which was my best math grade in my undergraduate program. Also with a different professor. When I got out of college and fell, literally, into my current field. I used trig, algebra and coordinate geometry every day. I calculated arcs, spirals and vertical curves. Easy peasy. Because I could apply the mathematics to real life; to tangible things. That permitted me to understand the intangible. I mentally calculate tips and change easily. Without that epiphany, not sure if I would. If I was working in a situation were I had to make change, I would still use the amount tendered function or count change the old fashioned way. Not because of a lack of ability, but to be sure that no mistake was made that would deprive someone of the correct change. Those that blame the education system for the inability of people to do basic math, I am in agreement. The education system failed to recognize that there are multiple learning methods. They pushed the one in which they were successful, being willing to assume those that didn't learn using their method were incapable of learning. Jun 04 17 06:01 pm Link I wonder how many people who were genius level in creative or other fields failed at math ? Quite a few I would guess Jun 04 17 06:10 pm Link Koryn wrote: Schools used to have this. We had a class in middle school that taught us how to write checks, balance a checkbook and other daily life skills. We also had home eonomics that taught us cooking basics, how to make a household budget and sew, among other things. We had civics too and were taught how the government works, different branches of the government and their function, etc. These were required classes for all students. Jun 04 17 06:26 pm Link Hunter GWPB wrote: This is very similar to my relationship with math. Jun 04 17 06:42 pm Link Maybe I shouldn't add (no pun intended) that for my first 8 years in school, I found math to be a breeze. It started with learning how to multiply in the 1st grade. I had a sister in the 3rd grade learning how and she struggled mightily. I picked it up easily. When I got to the 9th grade, though, algebra was a required class. I failed miserably. I had it again in the 10th grade and did the absolute best I could. 70 was passing, 69 was failing. I finished the year with a 70 average. In the 11th grade, I had a geometry class that I passed with a 90+ grade (an A). They only required 2 years of math, though, so for my senior year, I took it easy with no math classes. Just because you can't do simple math in your head doesn't mean you're stupid IMO. It just means you can't. I don't understand how a person gets by without it but many people here found it hard to believe I found algebra to be both difficult and useless. Everyone has their own forte. Jun 04 17 08:27 pm Link I always do calculations in my head. Jun 04 17 11:15 pm Link Somewhere in late grade school (a very long time ago), probably in 7th or 8th grade, I was taught two "practical math" skills that I still use. The first was how to make change. Say the charge is $17.43 and you're handed a $20 bill. You just build up from the $17.43 with your change. First, give them 2 pennies to get to $17.45. Then a nickle to get to $17.50; then two quarters to get to $18. Finally, two $1s to get to twenty. And always put the change in the customer's hand first, not on top of the bills where it can slide off. The second skill is even more important: Estimation. Look at a restaurant bill. Round each number up or down to the nearest dollar. Add the dollars as you go along. Entre #1 was $24.95. Rounded up that's $25. Entre #2 was $19.95; that's about $20, so we're at about $45. Two coffees at $4.50 each are $9. Add that to the $45 and you're at $54. Tax here is 8.25% or about 10%. Ten percent of $54 is $5.40. So the total bill, before tip, should be a bit less than $60. Jun 05 17 07:34 pm Link Last night I stopped for chocolate milk ($1.55) and chocolate candy (Peanut chews with dark chocolate- a Philadelphia original at $1.99) =$3.54 I gave the clerk a $5 bill and 55 cents (one quarter, 3 dimes). He dropped a dime in the bagging area, and entered the cash tendered as $5.35. He gave me $1.81 in change rather than $2.01. I mentioned he dropped the dime, he fished it out and gave it back. I started to argue about the other dime, got exasperated and left. Same chain (Wawa), different store, this morning, I stopped for Coke and chocolate. Yes, I eat way too much chocolate. It came to $4.53. I gave her a $5 bill and 55 cents (a quarter and three dimes) and she got it wrong too! They can't count change going in, and they can't count it going out. Jun 25 17 09:17 am Link This is why Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. was able to bamboozle so many people and get more change than he deserved. See and read "Catch Me If You Can" and view his website to better understand to what I refer. Jun 25 17 09:37 am Link Black Z Eddie wrote: Do you have a Coinstar kiosk in your area? Jun 25 17 10:04 am Link What happened to the good, 'ol slide rule???? Jun 25 17 10:25 am Link Koryn wrote: Different brains --> different wiring. I'm kinda the opposite -- I excelled in math & science, but for the life of me, I couldn't learn a foreign language. Translated into a good career as a computer scientists. That which can be measured makes sense to me. Jun 25 17 11:50 am Link It's worse to see the cashier look at you funny when you give them real money instead of a credit card ... and they look at you you like .. are you kidding me .. slide a credit card ! Jun 25 17 09:00 pm Link Americans suffer from poor primary and secondary school education, particularly in the field of math. When and where I went to school it required no talent to do math--new math arrived when I was in high school and already we had learned Euclid, and trigonometry tables. One math teacher we had, spoke five languages, including Russian, and he had memorized the trig tables. . At the high school I went to, in the year of qualifying for bursary money for university, one had to take calculus. I was lucky I suppose that as an American being educated abroad that I wound up having a very practical education, which included bookkeeping. I did lots of trial balances. You had so much math practice when you were little that you couldn't help but master math. Basic math is easy. University math is hard if you're not sharp at math. And I remember in the high school class I was in the math teacher would offer some university math problems to test the young bright minds. Here's a ranking and you'll see the U.S. ranks below Vietnam in high school math. If you're bad at basic math is essentially because you were badly educated: http://hechingerreport.org/u-s-now-rank … ions-math/ Jun 25 17 09:33 pm Link Nor-Cal Photography wrote: I remember my father using a slide rule. He was in construction and was studying engineering. It fascinated me to watch him. this was in the late 60's/early 70's. Jun 27 17 06:36 am Link Back when Radio Shack (Remember them?) worked out of a cash drawer and employees used hand-held calculators, I bought 10 resistor cards hanging on a hook that were 19 cents each. Guy at register pulled out calculator and added them up ten times slowly while counting on his fingers for the ten count. I told him "It's $1.90" and he got confused and started over. When he saw it was $1.90 he asked me "How'd you do that?" Seemed like I was talking to the Kyle character on "The Last Man Standing" TV show. Jun 27 17 07:07 am Link |
