I can't believe not one of a thousand parents could get this right??????

I did A level maths and I got it wrong.
And I’m not ashamed to say that.
The skills taught are easy to apply IF you remember them. But reality is, in the 26 years since leaving school I have never ever had to use those particular skills despite having done technical jobs, one of which required quite a lot of maths (albeit mechanical)
 
I think it shows how much people use algebra after leaving school. I haven’t and it didn’t mean much to me.

Most parents probably haven’t solved an equation like that for 20 or 30 years.

That said, with a bit of a refresher, most could probably grasp it. It just needs a bit of understanding and using some logic.
 
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Having looked at it, I cannot decide any earthly reason for needing to know the answer and struggle to imagine a practical use for such skills in every day life.
If I wanted to know the area of something I’d just measure it.
I think that schools would be better off teaching people the difference between people who would help them and lying toffee nosed, public school, money grabbing, elitist *****. Perhaps then we could stop history repeating itself
 
Maths is a perishable skill. If you use maths you can do it, if you don't you will probably struggle. It's not a mystery.
This👍

It's like anything. If you don't do something for 30 years or more you'll not suddenly know it because you once did.

Oh other than riding a bike or swimming.
 
It boils down to an easy quadratic equation. You just need to know the rules for multiplying things in brackets e.g. (y+1)(y-1) becomes y x y, y x -1, 1 x y and finally +1 x -1. This gives y^2 - y + y -1 i.e y^2-1.
 
It boils down to an easy quadratic equation. You just need to know the rules for multiplying things in brackets e.g. (y+1)(y-1) becomes y x y, y x -1, 1 x y and finally +1 x -1. This gives y^2 - y + y -1 i.e y^2-1.
Yep. You just need to know FOIL. The rest is just adding and subtracting.
 
Having looked at it, I cannot decide any earthly reason for needing to know the answer and struggle to imagine a practical use for such skills in every day life.
It's less about knowing the answer, and more about knowing how to break down a problem.

That question starts with an irregular shape and missing information. Some people may just throw their hands up, say they can't do it because they've never seen it before and give up. But by breaking the problem down, you can turn the irregular shape into regular ones a deduce the info that's missing.

They are life skills most adults use every day, in situations that have nothing to do with geometry or algebra. Most of us do things every day we've never done before, by breaking problems down into bite-sized chunks. When I've supported people who struggle with basic tasks, often it's because they treat them in the same way as the people who can't do this puzzle: e.g. "I can't go for that job interview because I don't know how to get there on public transport, so I give up"
 
It's less about knowing the answer, and more about knowing how to break down a problem.

That question starts with an irregular shape and missing information. Some people may just throw their hands up, say they can't do it because they've never seen it before and give up. But by breaking the problem down, you can turn the irregular shape into regular ones a deduce the info that's missing.

They are life skills most adults use every day, in situations that have nothing to do with geometry or algebra. Most of us do things every day we've never done before, by breaking problems down into bite-sized chunks. When I've supported people who struggle with basic tasks, often it's because they treat them in the same way as the people who can't do this puzzle: e.g. "I can't go for that job interview because I don't know how to get there on public transport, so I give up"
I'd like to like that more than once but it won't let me.
 
To expand a quadratic expression of the form (2x+6)(x+11) you multiply
First two : 2x * x = 2x squared
Outside two: 2x * 11 = 22x
Inside two: 6 * x = 6x
Last two: 6 * 11 = 66

So the original expression expands to be: 2x squared + 22x + 6x + 66

How the hell do you do superscript in these posts?
 
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