It surprised (and delighted) me with its foreignness - I'm afraid I can't imagine most Americans who would be entering that sort of contest being able to do that sort of math, nor putting up with being asked to even if they could.
Where does that come from? Maybe the attitude I saw daily working at the Library (how do you get into an ivy league school without being able to do your own research - or at least being open to the idea that we should be teaching you how to find your book, not dropping everything to find it for you) but I suppose it's just as likely to be that I am cranky at this age.
Oh! Oh, ok, that makes more sense now. ^_^ (Honestly, although we're technically supposed to do the trivia questions "without aid," most of the time it's mostly a case of remembering basic math and pulling out a calculator. *G*) It's the tiniest hoop to jump through to participate, and it's really just there to make sure a "contest" isn't a "lottery," and therefore wandering into the realm of gambling, which I believe requires gov't. licences, etc.
Sadly, there are far too many newer students that are displaying that sort of entitled attitude as they enter university here too. "Do it for me." *sigh* I'm trying very hard to knock that out of the ones that come my way before they make it into the post-secondary system, but it's a few drops in a whole ocean.
's the tiniest hoop to jump through to participate, and it's really just there to make sure a "contest" isn't a "lottery,"
Ah, the lightbulb goes on!
I'm trying very hard to knock that out of the ones that come my way before they make it into the post-secondary system, but it's a few drops in a whole ocean.
Good luck with that! At least teachers and administrators are seen to have some authority - library staff apparently falls into the "servant" or "hired help" class. (Thankfully, that's only a generalization - but still, frequent enough to be annoying.)
Quite simple... if one remembers the "Midas" mnemonic for order of operation. Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract (taking care of parenthesis and exponentiation first)
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Where does that come from? Maybe the attitude I saw daily working at the Library (how do you get into an ivy league school without being able to do your own research - or at least being open to the idea that we should be teaching you how to find your book, not dropping everything to find it for you) but I suppose it's just as likely to be that I am cranky at this age.
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Sadly, there are far too many newer students that are displaying that sort of entitled attitude as they enter university here too. "Do it for me." *sigh* I'm trying very hard to knock that out of the ones that come my way before they make it into the post-secondary system, but it's a few drops in a whole ocean.
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's the tiniest hoop to jump through to participate, and it's really just there to make sure a "contest" isn't a "lottery,"
Ah, the lightbulb goes on!
I'm trying very hard to knock that out of the ones that come my way before they make it into the post-secondary system, but it's a few drops in a whole ocean.
Good luck with that! At least teachers and administrators are seen to have some authority - library staff apparently falls into the "servant" or "hired help" class. (Thankfully, that's only a generalization - but still, frequent enough to be annoying.)
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Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract (taking care of parenthesis and exponentiation first)
Thus:
(25 x 8) / 5 + 127 - 86 =
200 / 5 + 127 - 86 =
40 + 127 - 86 =
167 - 86 =
81
QED
Pedantically Yours, {grin}
--MAB
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