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Suppose, a litre of cola costs US$3.15. If you buy one third of a litre of cola, how much would you pay?
The above may seem like a rather basic question. Something that you would perhaps expect the vast majority of adults to be able to answer? Particularly if they are allowed to use a calculator.
Unfortunately, the reality is that a large number of adults across the world struggle with even such basic financial tasks (the correct answer is US$1.05, by the way).
[...] In many other countries, the situation is even worse. Four in every ten adults in places like England, Canada, Spain and the US can't make this straightforward calculation – even when they had a calculator to hand. Similarly, less than half of adults in places like Chile, Turkey and South Korea can get the right answer.
-- submitted from IRC
High number of adults unable to do basic mathematical tasks
(Score: 2) by IndigoFreak on Friday March 16 2018, @03:08AM (5 children)
When I read the start of this, I thought that as well. I thought the answer was going to be $3.15 and it was a trick question because you buy a liter, you don't dump out 2/3's of it then argue the price is $1.05.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Friday March 16 2018, @05:01AM (2 children)
Three people splitting the bottle is what I thought.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Friday March 16 2018, @01:06PM
Yes, but that is not the way that the question is asked. Was this an oversight on the part of the test creator? Or a deliberate introduction of ambiguity between the different questions "divide by 3" and "guess the price of a 330 ml single-serve bottle"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @01:09PM
That would have been an easy way to make a decently SENSIBLE question. Though I guess some people would say "but this guy, he always drinks so much of it, so he always pays $1.50".
(Score: 2) by danmars on Friday March 16 2018, @02:24PM (1 child)
With some effort to interpret the question in a way that would make some sense, I assumed they were wondering what the price-per-liter was for the 3-liter bottle. (Logical application: Below what price would it be a better deal to buy 3 1-liter bottles?)
This is a common type of insufficiently-specific "word question" I've seen in some math questions other places (like Facebook). It's also the kind of question you'll see a lot from second-line support at a technology company, where you need to figure out what they're trying to ask you instead of just answering the words they wrote in the question.
For those of us who like to use the shortcut of the price-per-unit on the shelf price tag, if you pay attention you'll notice that they're often wrong, and not just because of "bonus 20%" packaging. I'm sure most people never notice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @09:27PM
Another well-formulated question.
...unlike the one in TFS's example.
You also go on the short list of qualified people.
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