My calculator does give 31. It is a scientific calculator and it automatically applies the BODMAS rules that the other posters are talking about. The result of a calculation like this depends on the order in which the operations are done. You could have a rule which says "read from left to right", but mathematicians have the BODMAS rule.

Regarding 4 x 0, if you have zero cars, or houses, or shoes, you have no cars, or houses or shoes; and if you have zero 4s, you have no fours, ie 0. Even your calculator will tell you that.

That's just nonsense. Doubling means multiplying by 2.

I don't think they are allowed use calculators so most of todays young hopefuls are lost without their electronic aids.
Mental arithmetic was part of our curiculum in primary schools.
Still I am appalled that this group who have been chosen from thousands are not capable of doing simple adding and multiplication.

Very poor for this countrys future prospects.

Yes, but the question is what the criteria were for choosing them. They do not include being the best business prospects of the UK but they do include being likely to produce some silly moments people can laugh at.

The point of the example is that you don't get the right answer if you follow the acronym and do the addition before the subtraction.

deleted - can't be bothered

Ah, yes I see - sorry. It's all irrelevant to the thread topic anyway. The candidates on the show aren't being asked a load of complicated calculations which involve an in depth knowledge of the BODMAS rule, they need decent arithmetical skills (multiplication, addition and subtraction basically) and those chosen for the gig don't seem to possess them.

Agree, if they could just manage and then stick to the simple stuff (adding, taking away and basic times tables) they would sail through without to much embarrassment. I think the girl's brave attempt to convert their final figures into a percentage was their downfall.
Come on now, imagining that the £7.34 cost price of a £17.99 retail price will yield a profit of over 200% is an exciting prospect.

3 + 7 x 4 has one correct answer. That answer is: "it depends". It depends on which rules of operational hierarchy you apply. If you use natural linear hierarchy, then you perform the operations from left to right, evaluating any expression in brackets first. If you use computational hierarchy, then you perform operations in the order powers (inc. roots), divisions, multiplications, additions and subtractions in that order, again evaluation bracketed expression first. This may seem unnatural, but there a good reasons for computing devices to use that hierarchy.

Therefore, unless it is understood which hierarchy is to be used, the expression 3 + 7 x 4 is ambiguous and should be shot down in flames, and replaced with (3 + 7) x 4 or 3 + (7 x 4), to make it absolutely clear what is wanted.

As for multiplying by zero, I cannot believe some of the stuff written above. It is quite simple: nothing comes from nothing; nothing stays nothing. Once nothing is nothing, twice nothing is nothing, thrice nothing is nothing. Or the other way around: no twos is nothing, no threes is nothing, etc. We don't need a zero times table because all the answers are zero. This is one mathematical rule that is clear, natural and patently obvious. Thus:

(422² + 16ab/c) x 56784/876.897 x 0 x (567 + (546-78654) - x) = 0

QED (Quite easily done), or
5w (which was what was wanted)

A poorly presented sum well executed is as pointless as a well presented sum poorly executed.

Actually I think there is an argument for having a diverse group. Part of the interest is in seeing how different talents and backgrounds make out. So they have salespeople, more managerial types, self-taught and classically educated, artists and lawyers. Including a few innumerate people is a bit like including people who can't sell. You can hire salespeople and you can hire accountants; those skills are virtually commodities. What really matters is the entrepreneurial spark.

Well considering one of the questions on this year's Edexcel Maths GCSE paper was

"Write eight million in numbers" it says a LOT about the ability of todays youth to do basic maths. That is the sort of question children in the 60s could answer in primary school - never mind at 16+. At least they could have made it "seven miliion, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine" rather than a simple round eight million?

And they try to tell us that they haven't dumbed down the exams!

Basic mathematical skills were probably irrelevant to the last show. The problem was that they were making up figures on costs, margins and price, and coming in with absurdly naive ideas on what sales figures might be possible. There was nothing obviously there about maths skill - they either had the necessary figures in a brief and couldn't read them, or they were making things up off the top of their head. If they had an equation to work from, no one seemed to know they had one, and if it existed they could hardly work it out in their head. You might conclude they couldn't read, or master a brief, or had no idea of retail reality, but there was nothing to conclude on basic maths skills. Einstein would fail to answer the question, how much would a million cost, with no data to work from.

Well done, use an example from probably the first quarter of a test and try it pass it off as one of the big, deciding questions in the exam, and then using that as "proof" they've dumbed down the exams when it's likely that kind of question was common 20, 30 years ago.

If by your logic 10 x 0 = 10

and we all know that 10 x 2 = 20

what would you say re 10 x 1 = ?

Granted, that was the first question of 17 on the paper - but the others, while they did get progressively harder were still well within the mental aritmetic capabilities of someone who squeaked a pass at O level nearly 40 years ago, and who hasn't looked at anything mathematical since.

I can guarantee that the class of 2012 wouldn't get anywhere near the pass rate of 1972 (and we had to do 2 three hour exams with 12 or so difficult problems to cover in each , rather and the short paper wuith short questions they get these days.

I was still only partially through the thread in my earlier answer hence still finding it all funny.

I did however, on getting to your reply, prefer your much more erudite and succinct response over mine

Literally, the answer is 40 as it was written like this and in any calculator in the world it will be 40. The poster should have been more specific if he/she is clever enough to understand the order of operations.

Not it won't, get a decent calcultor ffs!

they've used the diamater of the pond for the area instead of the radius right?

You'd never have got that question in an exam for 16-year-olds 30 years ago. I know because I was 16 30 years ago.

True, but anyone who's seen a GCSE maths paper will know that question does not sum up the level of the whole paper. It is a bit of general knowledge: essentially how many zeros are there in a million written as a number? The idea of GCSE was that it tests all levels of ability, it combined the previous CSE with GCE O level. To get a high grade GCSE you need a mathematical knowledge equivalent to the old O level. To scrape a pass you need some more basic knowledge.

If all the questions (and the GCSE course) were as easy as that how could anyone make the transition to A level and then university level maths?

I got 40, but that's because I just did in from left to right in my head, ignoring the fuss that bodmas creates :P

Things are getting slightly over heated in the argument over the problem 3+7 X 4

BODMAS
Brackets, Of, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction
so 3+7 X 4 = 3 + 28 = 31

(3+7) X 4 = 40 but that is not what was asked.

http://www.mathsisfun.com/operation-order-bodmas.html





This thread gets funnier by the minute. I blame the introduction of calculators into the classroom in the seventies
"To double" means to multiply something by two. Whenever you double a number you multiply it by two, not by any other number.
Five doubled once is ten.
Five doubled twice is twenty. (no I don't accept that it is ten )
Five cannot be doubled by zero Five multiplied by zero = zero

I've been told on a number of occasions that I need my head examined - but I can do junior school arithmetic.

It's been widely reported in the media for several years that universities are now spending the time, during the first year, teaching the maths that pupils in the past covered at A Level.

Over the past ten years I've seen a lot of pupils who have gained A* at Maths GCSE then go on to struggle with their A Level Maths and either give up, or obtain very poor grades.