Hardly Anyone Remembers How to do Fractions

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

I own a business where employees need to now how to work out fractions and long multiplication to do their job efficiently.

Don't we have calculators for that already? Maths is just ewww

[Cyberman]

I sort of half remember how to do fractions.

[Kernel Sohcahtoa]

edit.

My apologies for my post.  Upon reflection, it was irrelevant to the thread, nor would it inspire those who do not like math to explore it for themselves.

[robvalue]

I love maths. Always have.

If anything could be said to be the "language of the universe", I'd say it's maths.

[ignoramus]

I thought all Americans are good at fractions by the way they love pleading the fifth?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Skills you don't use are really easy to forget. It's not exactly a skill that finds much use in everyday life, at least not for me.  I'm surprised I still remember how.

I have to admit that I forgot how to do fractions in my head. I would have just used decimals for those question. When I saw the solution it all came back to me. It's one thing that really annoys me about coding tests. You're expected to remember all the information in your head when in real life you use google to remind yourself how to do things. There is no way I can remember how to do everything that I have ever worked on. Remembering is not the same as understanding or being able to quickly learn on the spot.

[robvalue]

Yeah, I dislike how memory orientated exams tend to be. As you say, it's not a skill that is needed to such a degree in real life.

[Alex K]

Yeah, I dislike how memory orientated exams tend to be. As you say, it's not a skill that is needed to such a degree in real life.

That's why our math exams consist of a smaller part that is solved without any aids, and a longer more difficult part which is solved using standardized officially issued "cheat sheets". This allows us to design challenging exams which do not rely heavily on memorization of formulas.

[LastPoet]

But I do know that '132 x 64' doesn't involve fractions.

Wrong! Its 132/1 x 64/1

Its more like 264/2 ×128/2

[Faith No More]

I get that people forget things if they don't use them(hell, if I only had a dollar for each thing I've forgotten that I should know), but it's really foreign to me that people can forget how to use fractions. I get it if you need to be reminded what COS is or how to calculate a derivative, but basic fractions?