I have just read an article in the winter Guelph Alumnus by Roberta Franchuk on the subject of math anxiety. The ar ticle includes a skill-testing question and gives the answer as 491.95. Because the problem is posed incor rectly, readers of the article mu st certain ly have suffered considerable math an xiety trying to solve it. The answer to the problem should be 597A. The answer of 491.95 would solve the problem if the equation were enclosed in brackets. The square brack ets are the key. Math anxiety, indeed. Joe Hagge Georgetown,Ont. Please note that the answer given to the skill-testing question on page 17 of the winter Alumnus is incorrect. The correct and only solution is 597 A. It's no wonder students suffer " math anxiety." I do, too, every time I see skill testing questions with wrong anSwers. Don Hamilton Markham,Ont. I would like to commend you on the ex cellent winter issue of the Alumnus. In stead of my usual quick skim through, I found myself actually reading it cover to cover. Many of the articles focus ed on re search and teaching, the two things I remember Guelph most fondly for and the two things that may convince many prospective students that Guelph is the right choice. Such a refreshing change from the usual dull material on picnics, conferences, awards, etc. I hope you'll decide to continue in this vein.
Christine (Paquette) Reissmann, OAC '77 Ottawa,Ont. I am writing in response to your letter from a former resident assistant. I agree that being on the residence life staff can be a valuable experience, but so can belonging to I nterhall Council. I am a fOlmer president of both Maritime Hall and Prairie Hall and a former Interhall Council chair. The leadership and skills that I learned have been invaluable to me. They enabled me 4
to enter the pharmaceutical industry as a sales representative. Today I am a dis trict sales manager for Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, one of Canada 's top 10 phar maceutical companies. When I was an undergraduate, Inter hall Council was underrated. Students failed to realize that it was our members who represented the thousands of under graduates in residence on various ad ministrative committees. We were the ones who negotiated for improvements in the residences and cafeterias. Interhall Council spearheaded the
campaign against the closing of Maritime cafeteria. And let's not forget orientation. Without the help of the residence hall presidents and their coun cil of volunteers, orientation would not be the annual success that it is. So, yes , being a residence life staff may provide some opportunity and skills to deal with the future , but I know that without my experie nce as a member of InterhaU Council , I wouldn't be where I am today.
Dean Demilio, CBS '87 Mi ssissauga,Ont.
We made a mistake In the last issue of the Guelph Alumnus, we printed Robe rta Franchuk 's humorou s look at math anxiety, but the joke was on us. In our illustration for the story, we presented this sk ill-test ing math problem
What's 5% of (52 - 14) x 2 16 -
J&- +
(256 - 133) ???
- but gave the wrong answer for it. The correct answer is 597A. Our answer of 491.95 was wrong becau se we failed to observe the order of operations rules. Many readers noticed the error, in clud ing everyone in the Univers ity 's Department of Mathematics and Stati s tics. And several told us stories about the other people they've caught abus ing the rules of BEDMAS (brackets, exponents, division , multiplication , ad dition , subtraction). Our mistake has placed us in the company of several of Canada's largest corporations. Guelph professor Jack Weiner and Gary Flewelling, math consultant for the Wellington County Board of Education, recently argued the case of a high school student who was denied $200 worth of compact discs in an auto manufacturer's contest because hi s a nswer to this skill-testing ques tion- 22+ 14dx4 -3= -did not match the auto maker's answer. The student' s answer was 37 213. The auto maker contends that all mathe
matical functions should be performed in order moving from left to righ t, making the answer 45. Weiner asks us to apply the auto maker's reasoning to a bank ing problem. You have $100 in your savings account when you begin ad ding $10 a week for 20 weeks. How much money do you have at the end of the 20 weeks? If you write out the expression, it looks like thi s: 100 + 10 x 20. The correct answer, of course, is $300, but by the auto manufacturer 's calculation, you'd have $2,200. " Is that how they price their cars')" asks We iner. Thi s is a good example of why we can't Jet mathematical errors go uncor rected. Meanwhile, the high school student still hasn't received his com pact discs. The company is now argu ing that both answers are right. Go figure l Those of us working on the Guelph Alumnus have learned our lesson. Our apologies to those readers who deve loped math anxiety trying to fig ure out how we got our answer ... and to those reade rs who gor the same answer we did, because now you know that you're not a mathematical whiz after all. Guelph Alumnus
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