Math-challenged Americans more likely to end up in foreclosure

[Train]

http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/20...ans-more-likely-to-end-up-in-foreclosure?lite

Apparently being bad at basic math questions such as "A $300 item is half off, how much does it cost?" is a bigger predictor of foreclosure than income, overall education level, IQ, and type of mortgage.

Another facepalm later in the article:

only 42 percent of U.S. adults could pick out two items on a restaurant menu, add them and calculate a tip.

sigh

 

[Red Storm]

And the sun sets in the west.

 

[highland145]

And water is wet.

 

[Bateluer]

only 42 percent of U.S. adults could pick out two items on a restaurant menu, add them and calculate a tip.

sigh

Whats the criteria for that exactly? Anyone with a cellphone should be able to add it up perfectly every time. If you're referring to doing it by hand, I don't waste the time thinking about it to do it perfectly and just make it a nice round number on the bill that makes the tip roughly equal to my normal 30%.

 

[phucheneh]

...for that matter, did they clarify the '$300 item is half off' thing? With that vague wording, it could be 150 or 600. Arbritrarily call one of those answers wrong, and gee, I wonder why someone wouldn't be able to get that.

Not that I think people are generally anything but stupid. Just sayin'...

edit: oh, the verbatim test is at the bottom. OP just decided to change the wording.

 

[zokudu]

Whats the criteria for that exactly? Anyone with a cellphone should be able to add it up perfectly every time. If you're referring to doing it by hand, I don't waste the time thinking about it to do it perfectly and just make it a nice round number on the bill that makes the tip roughly equal to my normal 30%.

Tipping thread inc.

 

[Eug]

I remember buying something in a store, and the bill came out to something like $12.99.

I gave her a $20 bill. She said if I gave her a penny, she could give me back the change in bills, and not worry about coins. I said she owed me the penny. She argued. I argued back. This went on for several volleys and she just "gave in" with a sigh. What a frickin' moron. Luckily we no longer have pennies, but I'm sure she'd do the same thing with nickels. I wonder if she ever got a mortgage.

I've often said that one of the most important classes in high school is math, regardless of your chosen profession later on. And no, calculators should not be needed.

...for that matter, did they clarify the '$300 item is half off' thing? With that vague wording, it could be 150 or 600. Arbritrarily call one of those answers wrong, and gee, I wonder why someone wouldn't be able to get that.

Not that I think people are generally anything but stupid. Just sayin'...

Here is the question:

1. In a sale, a shop is selling all items at half price. Before the sale, a sofa costs $300. How much will it cost in the sale?

It's pretty clear.

 

[Tweak155]

Fat people more likely to eat fast food. News at 11.

 

[Train]

Whats the criteria for that exactly?

Eh? Do you know how to use the word 'criteria'?

Anyone with a cellphone should be able to add it up perfectly every time. If you're referring to doing it by hand, I don't waste the time thinking about it to do it perfectly and just make it a nice round number on the bill that makes the tip roughly equal to my normal 30%.

I think the point is that people CAN'T do it, as in, it should be a simple math problem solvable by anyone past 4th grade.

I don't think they are implying you have to do it by hand every time, or that you can't use a calculator and get an exact tip down to the penny.

 

[edro]

I tip 15-20% if service is good.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Whats the criteria for that exactly? Anyone with a cellphone should be able to add it up perfectly every time. If you're referring to doing it by hand, I don't waste the time thinking about it to do it perfectly and just make it a nice round number on the bill that makes the tip roughly equal to my normal 30%.

Well it is pretty easy to do it in your head, and I'm pretty weak in math relative to everything else. Move the decimal one place to the left for 10%. Add half of that to it for 15%. Double it for 20%, and so on. I always calculate tips in my head.

 

[Eug]

It's a little bit harder in places where the final bill includes taxes.

eg. Up here, the bill might come to $135.60, if the original bill was $120, because the extra $15.60 is tax. So, a 15% tip on that $135.60 bill by your method is:

((($135.60 / 1.13) * 0.1) * 1.5 = $18

I'm sure if you presented that to a lot of people, that'd freak them right out.

Fortunately, free iOS and Android apps exist to calculate this for you, and even will split the bill when multiple people are paying.

Mind you I often just use the final-including-tax amount and add 15% anyway, which gives about a 17% tip.

 

[Bateluer]

I remember buying something in a store, and the bill came out to something like $12.99.

I gave her a $20 bill. She said if I gave her a penny, she could give me back the change in bills, and not worry about coins. I said she owed me the penny. She argued. I argued back. This went on for several volleys and she just "gave in" with a sigh. What a frickin' moron. Luckily we no longer have pennies, but I'm sure she'd do the same thing with nickels. I wonder if she ever got a mortgage.

Don't modern registers at least tell the clerk the change? Items are rung up, total is displayed, read to customer, customer hands cash to clerk, clerk enters value of cash on register, register displays change?

Well it is pretty easy to do it in your head, and I'm pretty weak in math relative to everything else. Move the decimal one place to the left for 10%. Add half of that to it for 15%. Double it for 20%, and so on. I always calculate tips in my head.

I'm usually quite drunk by the time comes to write up the check, so it can be problematic.

 

[Texashiker]

only 42 percent of U.S. adults could pick out two items on a restaurant menu, add them and calculate a tip.

Tip is defined by quality of service, not the price of the items.

Poor service = no tip

Good service = up to 20% of meal cost.

 

[Eug]

Don't modern registers at least tell the clerk the change? Items are rung up, total is displayed, read to customer, customer hands cash to clerk, clerk enters value of cash on register, register displays change?

Yes they do, but she didn't type in $20. She typed in $12.99.

The other bonus of modern times is that the wireless credit and debit machines they have in many restaurants have a % tip calculation add-on button now.

Tip is defined by quality of service, not the price of the items.

Poor service = no tip

Good service = up to 20% of meal cost.

So, in other words, the tip is defined in large part by the price of the items.

 

[Bateluer]

Tip is defined by quality of service, not the price of the items.

Determined by the total price of the bill though. Good service on a 10 dollar bill will see a different tip than good service on a 100 dollar bill.


Also,

5. Let's say you have $200 in a savings account. The account earns 10 percent interest per year. How much will you have in the account at the end of two years?

Where is that savings account at!? I want in.

 

[jagec]

4. If 5 people all have the winning numbers in the lottery and the prize is $2 million, how much will each of them get?

Hey, now, that is NOT a simple question. Where were each of this tickets bought? What states do each of them live in? Are they considered residents for tax purposes? Are they all taking the cash option, or are some of them taking the annuity? Lots of factors change the answer...

 

[chubbyfatazn]

I've often said that one of the most important classes in high school is math, regardless of your chosen profession later on.

While I fully agree with the sentiment, this stuff isn't even high school level math. The only potentially tricky thing for a younger kid to know is the simple/compound interest question, but even I remember doing interest calculations in middle school.

I have a hard time believing that this many people are THAT stupid... maybe I just don't go out often enough.

1. In a sale, a shop is selling all items at half price. Before the sale, a sofa costs $300. How much will it cost in the sale?
2. If the chance of getting a disease is 10 per cent, how many people out of 1,000 would be expected to get the disease?
3. A second-hand car dealer is selling a car for $6,000. This is two-thirds of what it cost new. How much did the car cost new?
4. If 5 people all have the winning numbers in the lottery and the prize is $2 million, how much will each of them get?
5. Let's say you have $200 in a savings account. The account earns 10 percent interest per year. How much will you have in the account at the end of two years?

 

[Mixolydian]

Modern technology has eliminated the need to do math mentally. Deal with it.

 

[Sheep]

Modern technology has eliminated the need to do math mentally. Deal with it.

And we've seen how utterly clueless some people are with modern technology so the fact that there are so many math-challenged people out there shouldn't be surprising.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Modern technology has eliminated the need to do math mentally. Deal with it.

I think Asimov or someone wrote a short story about this. He imagined a future where everyone had pocket computers which became so ubiquitous that the ability to perform mental calculations disappeared from the population. There was no need to ever know how to do math when they could simply pull out a small device and have it give them the correct answer every time. One day a man appeared who had wondered how exactly these pocket computers arrived at their answers, so he basically reverse engineered one and rediscovered math. The military was astonished that this guy could, with only a few pieces of paper, calculate the trajectory of a missile that was normally only able to be guided by computer. Computers were extremely valuable, so the military had the idea of having this guy teach terminally ill people his method so that they could literally pilot the missiles to their assigned target by hand.

There was more to it than that, but it was a good story and kind of prophetic in ways the author might not have believed himself. I can't remember the name of the story, but this post brought it to mind.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

I think Asimov or someone wrote a short story about this. He imagined a future where everyone had pocket computers which became so ubiquitous that the ability to perform mental calculations disappeared from the population. There was no need to ever know how to do math when they could simply pull out a small device and have it give them the correct answer every time. One day a man appeared who had wondered how exactly these pocket computers arrived at their answers, so he basically reverse engineered one and rediscovered math. The military was astonished that this guy could, with only a few pieces of paper, calculate the trajectory of a missile that was normally only able to be guided by computer. Computers were extremely valuable, so the military had the idea of having this guy teach terminally ill people his method so that they could literally pilot the missiles to their assigned target by hand.

There was more to it than that, but it was a good story and kind of prophetic in ways the author might not have believed himself. I can't remember the name of the story, but this post brought it to mind.

That would be The Feeling of Power.

Good read.

 

[ElFenix]

It's a little bit harder in places where the final bill includes taxes.

eg. Up here, the bill might come to $135.60, if the original bill was $120, because the extra $15.60 is tax. So, a 15% tip on that $135.60 bill by your method is:

((($135.60 / 1.13) * 0.1) * 1.5 = $18

I'm sure if you presented that to a lot of people, that'd freak them right out.

Fortunately, free iOS and Android apps exist to calculate this for you, and even will split the bill when multiple people are paying.

Mind you I often just use the final-including-tax amount and add 15% anyway, which gives about a 17% tip.

i was told there would be no math

 

[DrPizza]

Modern technology has eliminated the need to do math mentally. Deal with it.

But the point is that people who have no number sense are the ones defaulting on mortgages. There isn't a simple pick up a calculator and perform a single arithmetic operation to determine if you can afford your mortgage long term.

 

[jagec]

Modern technology has eliminated the need to do math mentally. Deal with it.

There are two reasons why it is still a useful skill.

The first is that just because you can whip out your smartphone every time you need to calculate a 20% tip or figure out whether it's better to buy 3 for a dollar or 2 for $0.40 each doesn't mean that you will. The time that it takes to get out the phone, unlock it, go to the calculator, formulate the problem, and get the answer is more than many innumerate people are willing to spend, which means that they are perpetually going to be ripped off by deceptive labeling and vulnerable to simple cognitive biases.

The second is that knowing how to do mental math gives you a sense of heuristics, even if you don't calculate the exact answer every time. If I'm filling up my car and I put 15 gallons in at $3.88/gallon, I know that my bill will be around $60, and if it's over that something is wrong. Innumerate people could get a $80 bill and have no clue other than "it's more than I usually pay, I guess the price of gasoline did go up a few cents since last time."

I work with high schoolers on a summer science program, and it's not uncommon for them to make order-of-magnitude errors in their calculations without even realizing it. And yes, sometimes they even do this when they're using a calculator...turns out that it takes a little mental math sense just to enter the problem correctly.

I'm not suggesting that everyone should memorize pi to 100 decimal places or know how to take cube roots in their head, but a little basic understanding and enough practice to get some idea of how the different equations work (especially compound interest) will get you a long way.

Use the machine for complex or precise solutions, use your brain for easy problems and decent estimates.