How good are you with numbers? Take the National Numeracy test

MSE_Martin

Being numerate isn’t about your algebra and calculus skills, it’s about your ability to cope with the day to day calculations all of us need to do. I’ve campaigned for financial education to be on the curriculum for many years, and we succeeded in getting it there in 2014 for senior schools. Financial numeracy is a key part of that, but of course there are many adults who struggle.

So why not see how good you are, using tests from the National Numeracy charity.

There’s the quick test which takes a couple of minutes – though far better is the full National Numeracy Challenge (requires a login). It’ll assess you and then provide free courses to improve in areas you’re lacking

Report your score
If you do the full test, do report your score in the forum post.
I got 98. One of my two wrong was due to rushing and refusing to use a calculator, the other I’ve been in touch with National Numeracy to dispute the answer!

Let us know below

[purplesignup][/purplesignup]

maman

Anyone getting fed up with maths homework? This is the school holidays!!

silvercar

maman wrote: »

Anyone getting fed up with maths homework? This is the school holidays!!

Never fed up of maths!

I scored 99; I wonder whether the one I missed was the one Martin is disputing?

pinkshoes

I got 99 too! I quite enjoyed some holiday maths!

I got wrong:
You buy a laptop that costs £899, including VAT at 20%. How much of the purchase price is VAT?

Why is it not £179.80??? I cannot understand why I got it wrong.

Am I mis-reading the question?

debtisnotme

I enjoy some holiday Maths too, only got 94 though, I always get confused with the averages!

Kim_13

Bookmarked the full test to do it when I have more time and am not so tired.

Just managed to accidentally click an obviously wrong answer rushing the quick test.

greyfox

pinkshoes wrote: »

I got wrong:
You buy a laptop that costs £899, including VAT at 20%. How much of the purchase price is VAT?

Why is it not £179.80??? I cannot understand why I got it wrong.

Let's say a pre-VAT price was £100. VAT @ 20% would add £20, so VAT-inclusive price would be £120. The VAT element of that would be 20/120 (1/6) - bringing us back to the £20.

Therefore, the VAT element of £899 purchase price would be
(£899x20) /120 (or, if you prefer, one sixth of £899) which is £149.83 or thereabouts.

Zeni

pinkshoes wrote: »

I got 99 too! I quite enjoyed some holiday maths!

I got wrong:
You buy a laptop that costs £899, including VAT at 20%. How much of the purchase price is VAT?

Why is it not £179.80??? I cannot understand why I got it wrong.

Am I mis-reading the question?

I read this that the total price of laptop + VAT is £899. So by my calculations the laptop on its own costs £749.17 and the VAT is £149.83. (essentially i treated the full price as 120% of the purchase price so then ivided this number by 6 to find the 20% VAT). I haven't actually done the test so no idea if this is right but thats what I would of said.

silvercar

Zeni wrote: »

I read this that the total price of laptop + VAT is £899. So by my calculations the laptop on its own costs £749.17 and the VAT is £149.83. (essentially i treated the full price as 120% of the purchase price so then ivided this number by 6 to find the 20% VAT). I haven't actually done the test so no idea if this is right but thats what I would of said.

I agree.



...

Zeni

Finished the test with 98, pretty happy. Realised one I got wrong by not reading the question properly (The helicopter flew north west not north opps..) and another was a silly error. Actually impressed I got the worst two about the paper weight and the fraction off families as they took me a minute!

PhilTilson

I wonder if the one Martin was querying is the one about the spanner. To my mind, 17.008/32nds is close enough to 17/32nds - but it seems they disagree! 0.00025" seems a bit silly to argue about, and that's only if the nut is actually 13.499999mm across!