Innumeracy

[eldar]

It appears the Chinese are a bit better at adding up than we are over here. Here are a couple of sample tests. I could answer the first one with a pencil, some paper, and a hour or so. I answered the second one in my head in a matter of seconds, whilst decrying how dumb some of our university students must be. Fer Son-of-the-Deity-of-Your-Choice's sake, that second question is pre-GCSE, let alone what a first-year undergrad in any subject ought to understand. And yet they deny that examination standards are slipping.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

#2 is *not* pre-GCSE. Yes, it *is* completely tragic that someone could be going to university to do an arts course without being able to answer that, but it's a reasonable thing to find on a "not the higher paper" GCSE paper.

While my life is clearly too full of interest and fun to spend time on it, and in any case, I don't have a pen and paper handy, I feel pretty sure that I could solve the second one, and completely sure that I could in my university entry days.