🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3glbgk$o6h@macondo.dmu.ac.uk>,
Graham Perkins  <grp@dmu.ac.uk> wrote:
>Here's an anecdote you can add to your collection.  
>
> [ horror story about college student who hadn't grasped the
>   definition of percent ]
>
>This particular module had two other courseworks as well.  Most
>of the students in the class can use a calculator to work out
>a difficult sum, but do not understand how to work out their
>overall module mark from the three individual marks and the 
>weighting factors.

I once knew someone who had just graduated with distinction from a major
U.S. public university and was bound for law school but was unable to 
compute averages (or have any ability to analyze their meaning) or 
handle negative numbers and subtraction well enough to get a grocery 
bill straight.  This kind of innumeracy is not uncommon and seems to
be a symptom more of not understanding calculations than it is of not
having done enough of them early on in the educational treadmill.

-- 
   Jerry Kuch  				EMail: gdkuch@neumann.uwaterloo.ca 
   MY GOAL IN LIFE FOR THIS FALL: Acquire the long-awaited Tokyo Marui 
 remote-controlled Godzilla (from GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE) toy... to be 
 available in Japan in December. It will cost Y49,800.  Very expensive.