How is your mental arithmetic?

DaZe said:
Mental maths is probably my best skill out of everything. I have always been the best in my classes at mental maths. One of my teachers advised my parents that it would be a waste if I didn't take a job that greatly involved mental maths and maths in general.
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unfortunately its been closed for a while:

liffe.jpg


I'd have quite liked to have worked there...
 
Its pretty bad with some people and Im not just talking mental math.

One time at work (I work in a hospital) I went to the shop to buy a coffee which was .72p.

I handed the girl £1.02

She looked at the money then gave me back the 2p "Tee hee you gave me extra!"
 
My arithmetic is okay but kind of slow; I'm much more at home with more complicated mathematics. I'm getting some practice at it now as I keep getting exercises involving converting to/from binary 2's complement numbers which is all just arithmetic so hopefully this will make me better at it. :p
 
I'm okay with smallish numbers, but larger ones I need to stop and think about it. I can usually get an answer eventually, but if I'm under pressure for an answer my brain goes "No."
 
Excellent mental arithmetic, generally able to calculate most values in my head.

There's a girl at work who requires a calculator to figure out how much change must be given when the cost is €8 and the cash tendered is €10. How can people live like this! :confused:
 
Absolutely rubbish. Takes ages to do anything, and i never even properly learnt times tables. Funny thing is, if i'm actually concentrating i can get the complex theory fine, it's just the simple maths that i fail at :D
 
Pretty damn good.

Thanks for asking :)


"I can work out the square root of any number in less than 10 seconds. Don't believe me? Well lets try it with your phone number."
 
I hate the fact that some people think it's not important. I always try and solve things in my head before resorting to calculators, I even set myself complicated ones that can take several minutes just to keep in practice.

An easy example is working out how many seconds in a day. It can be broken down until what might sound complicated is simple.

60 * 60 = ?
6 * 6 = 36
36 * 100 = 3,600 seconds in an hour.

3,600 * 24 = ?
3,600 * 10 = 36,000
36,000 * 2 = 72,000
3,600 * 4 = ?
3,600 * 5 = 18,000
18,000 - 3,600 = 14,400

72,000 + 14,400 = 86,400 seconds in a day.

Always break problems down into something either easy to calculate or something you know by heart like 6 * 6 = 36.

Another tip is when multiplying my 5 it's easier to divide by 2 then multiply by 10. 36,000 * 5 is the same as (36 / 2 = 18) * 1000.

Dividing by 5 is similar, just divide by 10 then multiply by 2. Little tips like that can save a lot of time.
 
I've always been pretty good at it.

I have lots of friends who can do it too but when I do things like decimal multiplication or converting numbers to fractions and back they're like how you do that so fast.

Idk, I don't even multiply up and then down to make them integers.
 
I got a B in my maths GCSE but I'm useless at mental arithmetic. I don't even know all my times tables :o. I knew them in primary school, but after never using them, I have just forgotten them over time.
 
Pretty good. I tend to be able to be able to do most of the numbery maths in my degree without resorting to a calculator. (economics)

For all those wondering what non-numbery maths is, I'm talking Differentiations, integration etc.. Although, I can do quite a bit of that off the top of my head as well.

kd
 
King Damager said:
Pretty good. I tend to be able to be able to do most of the numbery maths in my degree without resorting to a calculator. (economics)

For all those wondering what non-numbery maths is, I'm talking Differentiations, integration etc.. Although, I can do quite a bit of that off the top of my head as well.

kd
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But really all differentiation/integration is, is subtracting (adding) one and multiplying (dividing) unless you're doing product/quotient rule, or differentiating functions like trigonometric functions and ln/e stuff.

And lol at 'non-numbery' maths, all maths is numbery.
 
Mine is pretty dire, I've never had a job involving counter cash or whatever. But if i did, i'd have no problems relying on the till to tell me how much change to give etc. Or even using calcs as they're on pretty much all modern phones now.

Where it may increase your brain power etc, it's pointless to do, I don't think its a bad thing to rely on computers to do math in this way. We rely on them for everything else.
 
I'm fine with maths as long as I don't think about it.

If someone snaps their finger I'll have an answer. Give me time to ponder however.....
 
semi-pro waster said:
I don't know if I'd go that far, I can understand the argument that certain skills will fall into a level of disuse but I still use mental arithmetic fairly regularly and I've got to admit a bit of disappointment when people immediately clutch their calculators to work out 1/6 of 1000 or similar. Mental arithmetic maybe isn't as important as it once was but it's still a rather useful skill even if you're just using it to get to a ballpark sort of figure before calculating it properly - a loose form of sense check if you will, it's perfectly possible to get a silly answer from the calculator if you don't have a vague idea of what you're looking for.
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Well I agree that today we still need it and anyone who can't work out 1/6 of 1000 in their head in this day and age is an insult to the human race.

I am more talking about in the future we will not need it because for the human race to advance we are going to have to rely more and more on computers to this job for us and work on newer problems. But nobody can predict the future so who knows. :)
 
I try not to use a calculator for basic calculations unless absolutely necessary. Calculating VAT has become a whole lot easier since the increase!

Math Workout on android helps keep my brain active.
 
mines crap because ive never really needed to do sums of the top of my head.

with excel and calculator apps on phones i dont see the point of using my brain, simple stuff like adding up as you go along in a supermarket and easy maths like how much change will i get if i spend XXX.

anything more complicated than that and ill just takle the easy route
 
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