USA Is #2

[Sunking]

Nope not Military, USA military is #3 trailing Russia and China. Recent studies like this one conclude the USA is the 2nd most ignorant country in the free world and heading to #1 to knock of Italy as the winner of the free worlds most stupid population.

Congratulations USA education system. Job well done.

[SunEagle]

Nope not Military, USA military is #3 trailing Russia and China. Recent studies like this one conclude the USA is the 2nd most ignorant country in the free world and heading to #1 to knock of Italy as the winner of the free worlds most stupid population.

Congratulations USA education system. Job well done.

Must be all them walmarts bringing down the intelligence rating.

Seriously it is sad that US kids are not being taught in school as well as they use to.

[Mike90250]

It's the fault of all the evil trigger words school children may come across, like Test.....

[Bala]

Sunking I dont really think the survey is to comprehensive,

11,527 online interviews accross 14 countries,

Approximately 1000+ individuals were surveyed in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Great Britain and the United States of America. Approximately 500+ individuals were surveyed in the remaining countries.

That is really not what I could call an extensive survey.

Not sure you should write your whole country off on those stats.

[J.P.M.]

Sunking I dont really think the survey is to comprehensive,

11,527 online interviews accross 14 countries,

Approximately 1000+ individuals were surveyed in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Great Britain and the United States of America. Approximately 500+ individuals were surveyed in the remaining countries.

That is really not what I could call an extensive survey.

Not sure you should write your whole country off on those stats.

While writing off may be a bit of a strong term, some feel they are watching and mourning the country they've lived in and loved their entire life go through something similar to the long goodbye to someone afflicted with Alzheimer's.

[Sunking]

Not sure you should write your whole country off on those stats.

Bala I wish could. If you were in your 50's or older, born and raised in the USA then you would know it is fairly accurate. Kids today, 40 and younger for lack of a better word are stupid. Three great examples are Math, Science, and US/World History. Vast majority of kids who graduate from the public education system today do not know My Dear Aunt Sally, or even know what that means. I bet you anything many the younger adults reading this have to go look up and see what that even means. Hint it is the first rule to Algebra, that dirty Politically Incorrect word. They know nothing of basic science principles, and History today is a 4-letter word that cannot be spoken. The younger generation is so out of touch with history, they dare repeat it and have no clue WW-III is about to break out, why, or how to stop it. Today in the USA, a 4 year college graduate are where students were 30 years ago as high school grads.

Folks like SunEagle, JPM, Mike, Inetdog, and myself know this and can see what is happening. The root cause IMHO is Political Correctness started by the Progressive Movement by the LBJ administration. PC makes liars and cowards out of everyone one of you. You dare not speak the truth as some find it offensive. Who gives a damn if you are offended? It is so bad you are not even allowed to talk about it and how to fix it. If you try you get called a racist, bigot, insensitive, offensive, and the list of cards goes on to silencer the truth. The solution is really simple, get the federal government and teachers union out of public education. President Reagan stated it quite correctly: "Government is not the solution to our problems, Government is the problem". Hell the current POTUS cannot even bring himself to call out the enemy or do anything about it. He does not want to offend them while they cut your head off and play it on TV.

[Bala]

Im over 50 but have never studied algebra, still managed to make a living as a mechanic.

I get the basics of what your saying, its a whole political discussion that will never be won. it does not matter who is in power they are in it for themselves and even if they are the better party they will get voted out eventually just because people will vote for change.

But what is also a worry is that people take a small snippet of info and run with it.

Did you read the questions in the survey? I only know a ballpark figure to answer two of them ( mind you I dont watch the news or read papers much), and basically all of the questions I could answer, dont know dont care. Which could be considered part of todays problems.

How were survey participants found? Possibly just people at home doing online surveys for a few $

So while i didnt do algebra I do remember doing show and tell at primary school and the lesson I ended up with was to verify the source of info.

[jflorey2]

[FONT=comic sans ms]Must be all them walmarts bringing down the intelligence rating. Seriously it is sad that US kids are not being taught in school as well as they use to.

Yep. And it's sad that educated people are now mocked for their education. We live in a society that celebrates ignorance over knowledge and incompetence over skill. Heck, look at Trump's popularity.

[foo1bar]

Vast majority of kids who graduate from the public education system today do not know My Dear Aunt Sally, or even know what that means. I bet you anything many the younger adults reading this have to go look up and see what that even means.

Well, I'm not "younger" for most considerations.
But I did have to go look up what that it was.
And I found that it is a poorly constructed mnemonic for order of operation.
Why poorly constructed?
Because if you used it as it is you get the wrong result for an equation like 4-2+1
Because "MDAS" implies Addition is before Subtraction - so you would look at 4-2+1 as being the same as 4-(2+1).
Instead of the correct order of opperation which evaluates it the same as (4-2)+1

Fortunately I wasn't taught that bad mnemonic - but was taught order of operation in grade school. And I know that order of operation is still taught to students.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

[foo1bar]

That is really not what I could call an extensive survey.

1000 *can* be a reasonable representative sample size for the US.
But most likely it wasn't a representative sample.
(the headlines are likely more important than getting a true representative sample)

If the questions in the quiz are the same as was used for the survey, I wouldn't say I'm too worried.
Things like "Are immigrants 7%, 13% or 32% of the population" (I guesstimated 10% so went with 7%, but according to them it's 13%)
"Did 50%, 58%, or 66% vote in the last election?"
"Is life expectancy for a child born in 2014 78 years, 80 years, 86 years?" (I guessed 78 - it was ~75 a few years ago - but it's apparently gone up to 80)

Others are laughably easy - like what's the % of women age 15-19 giving birth (obviously very low - very few women are pregnant in high school. It certainly happens but when it happens it's something of note - not something that happens with even 1 out of 10 girls.)

[Sunking]

Why poorly constructed?
Because if you used it as it is you get the wrong result for an equation like 4-2+1
Because "MDAS" implies Addition is before Subtraction - so you would look at 4-2+1 as being the same as 4-(2+1).
I

WRONG dead wrong. You changed a -2 into a +2 when you added the parenthesis. You cannot do that and have a TRUE statement. -2+1 = -1.

-2+4+1 = 3
1+4-2 = 3
4+1-2 = 3

You just failed a very simple 5th grade math question.You must of been educated in the USA.

[CA_Tom]

You changed a -2 into a +2.

There is no negative two in that example.

When you added the parenthesis, you changed the order of operations and changed a -2 into a +2.

The parenthesis show which operations are done first - the correct order (as agreed by algebraic rules) are addition and subtraction are done at the same precedence, from left to right.
"My Dear Aunt Sally" implies that addition is done before subtraction.
So with your order of operation mnemonic you would take
4-2+1
and do 2+1 = 3
then do the subtraction
4-3 = 1

With the correct order of operation you'd go just left to right. (well "correct" as they're what's been agreed on pretty universally)
So you'd do
4-2 = 2
2+1 = 3

Both are legitimate evaluations of the equation - The latter uses the proper order of operation. The former uses the "My Dear Aunt Sally" order.

WRONG

Yep - "My Dear Aunt Sally" is wrong.


You just failed a very simple 5th grade math question.You must of been educated in the USA.
Yep, you must have been educated in the US...

[Sunking]

You just failed a very simple 5th grade math question.You must of been educated in the USA.
Yep, you must have been educated in the US...

Nice Try Tom. I know the tricks, use to teach Algebra and Trig at a Jr College for a short period of time. The Rule if you want to get right down to the nuts and bolts is:



Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally replaced MDAS.

You are half right, I wil give you that much. MDAS is replaced with PEMDAS. The error is changing a -2 to into a +2. foo1bar did not read or follow the Right to Left order of MDAS which still applies. He should have read the rest of the article he found which is where I was directing folks. I knew what the first hit was in the MDAS search, and as soon as he posted the problem, I knew he fell for it and where he got it.

The equation is a trick every decent math teacher includes on a test. For me it was Bonus Question. Most fail the answer. In my class it was a Risk Reward bonus question. Get the Bonus Question right. regardless of all preceding problems being wrong or right, correctly answered, the bonus problem, you received an A+. Incorrect answer F on the test. Of course the test did not apply to the final grade, it was to pound the rule in Mush Head students.

[CA_Tom]

The error is changing a -2 to into a +2.

There is no negative 2 in the example - there is a subtraction and a 2, but no negative 2.

foo1bar did not read or follow the Right to Left order of MDAS which still applies.

First, it's left to right - NOT right to left. Just like you read left to right.
Second, you obviously aren't getting it.
MDAS implies the order is
1> Multiplication
2> Division
3> Addition
4> Subtraction

That is WRONG
The order is
1> Multiplication AND division
2> Addition AND subtraction

[Sunking]

First, it's left to right - NOT right to left. Just like you read left to right.
Second, you obviously aren't getting it.

No I get it just fine 40 years ago, I have Dyslexia and if you have been around for any time would know that. Anyone who has been around for a while knows my math is SPOT ON. .

MDAS implies the order is
1> Multiplication
2> Division
3> Addition
4> Subtraction

That is WRONG
The order is
1> Multiplication AND division
2> Addition AND subtraction

Your nucking futz, it is the exact same order. You have missed the whole point, the way I teach, which is obvious you are not here much, I make folks go look up the answers for themselves so they actually learn something.. MDAS led Foo1bar to exactly where I wanted him to go PEMDAS. You are the one who does not get it.

The order I pointed to is quite clear. Apparently reading is not your strong point. So here it is again in LARGER PRINT for you and I am typing slowly so you understand.