You'll never use math, eh?
Years ago, A&W restaurants created a 1/3 pound burger to compete with the quarter pounder at McDonald's.
No one bought it.
They thought it was smaller... because three is less than four.
And sure, that's funny. Until it isn't. Because many people manipulate us knowing so many people don't understand math. And, specifically, fractions.
Back in the 90's, parents flipped out over Dungeons and Dragons when media reported 24 kids (unrelated cases) who played the game committed suicide or killed someone. That's the numerator (top number) of the fraction.
What they omitted was the denominator: out of three million players in that age group.
In the general population, at that time, about 360 kids out of 3 million committed suicide or killed someone.
What the data *actually* showed was the D&D community appeared to have a protective quality.
Politicians understand our math deficiency and use misleading data in exactly the same way.
Also, sales people.
And the media.
My husband often says the lottery is a tax on poor people who are bad at math.
The takeaway: Understanding basic math is power.
Thus, when my daughter started falling behind in math, I enrolled her at Mathnasium. She loves going and her math scores improved 10% in the first month.
This is a writer's eccentric way of writing a review of Mathnasium.
p,s, The staff is incredible and supportive. read more
