I have just been witness to something that has completely shocked and shamed me. As some of you may know, I am a mathematics/statistics teacher, and an all-around geek. As such, I'm a huge math fan and really enjoy teaching it. Tonight, I was watching a show here called "1 vs. 100" in which the main participant answers trivia questions in an attempt to eliminate all 100 "mob" members for a $1,000,000 prize. The questions are all multiple choice with 3 answers. This was the second question of the game:

What is the average of the following numbers: 5, 10, 15

The answers listed were: a) 5, b) 15, c) 10

At this point, 97 members of the mob were remaining. The contestant answered correctly with c) 10, and then they showed how many got it wrong.

THIRTY ONE out of 97 got it wrong! I understand that mathematics is not a favorite subject to many, but computing averages should be common knowledge to everyone. I could possibly understand a few getting it wrong if the options didn't make it so obvious that 10 was the answer, but I am shocked and appalled that over 30% could not answer this question. Worse yet, the contestant himself said that he computes averages every day for his work, computing the average bill out of 3 months. After he chose correctly, he second guessed himself and thought the answer was 5. Five! How could the average of 5 and two larger numbers be 5?! And this from someone who computes averages EVERY DAY for work?!

Again, I understand that math isn't for everyone, but this is just grotesque!

Shocking.

I just had to

mdiver said:

I wear it with pride!

Moonbeam said:

I'm not surprized

Even if the % wrong was higher, I would not have been surprized

I got a C in Maths A-Level.

I can't integrate 1/k*e^kx dx for shit.

Spookymuffin said:

That is coz you are thick as pig shit you miserable fucktard

mdiver said:

Spookymuffin said:

mdiver said:

I'll bet my damn computer that you can find an average, though!







1/(k^2)*e^kx, by the way.

Moonbeam said:

Ok that is it.....burn the nerd!!!!! And burn his face first

Moonbeam said:

I was joking - I knew how to integrate that. It's integration with rates of change that always gets me; but only because I get tangled up.

50% of the population are below average

81% of statistics are made up

ZombieKitten said:

Only in a symmetric distribution.

50% of the population is definitely below the median, though!

Try teaching special ed...

I had a room of 6th graders who didn't know what loyalty was the other day, and when we were reading aloud they got stuck on the word cricket.

Man sometimes I wanna put my head through the wall.

See, I would have answered "George Bush"...

OK, how do you think I felt when one of my bingo friends brought her niece who had just graduated from High School and she asked her to mark out all the squares that end in odd number and she looked at her and asked what's an odd number?

don't you learn that in the first grade?! DAMN!

Byron said:

Except he'd be well below average.

To teach in cali you gotta take this teacher test called the CSET which is in 4 sections at a cost of 75 per section. I passed 3 of the 4 sections with ease. But it cost me 275 dollars worth of testing to pass the math section. How many times did I take this test math nerds?

Moonbeam said:

Moonbeam said:

actually I think at least 75% are below average