www.fullfact.org

Good idea, MiceElf. I look at www.fullfacts.org who try to put people right about statistics and graphs and misleading information. Maybe that's in the next lot of questions that you can go on to. I know enough to teach my grandson up to GCSE grade A*-C, so that will do for me.
I did teach maths and English until I gave up teaching, so it's good to know I haven't forgotten everything.
We always thought the boat people would do well.

I passed O level too

silver.
Equivalent to GCSE D-G

I've been thinking about this; whilst I think it's a jolly good idea for everyone to be able to be numerate enough to manage mathematics in everyday life, and I'm sure the questions on the challenge are relevant to this, it seems to me that to be really useful the challenge should forget about buying fences for circular ponds and space left on bookshelves. After all there are practical ways of finding the answers to these questions.

What I would like to see are questions relating to the ways in which governments and others seek to distort information. One example is the way bar charts or line graphs are shrunk or extended to give a misleading impression. Other examples would be the sort that Flickety B referred to on another thread about the use of mean or median which again distorts perception and presents an entirely false view.

I think many people find interest rates confusing and pensions a minefield. And again, a lot of the problem isn't with the Maths but with the way the language around the question or information is used.

Perhaps someone from the Challenge could comment.

Jen, my son was at school with a Vietnamese boat boy. He arrived without a word of English, shared a small flat with his parents and eight sibs. He was a lovely boy and a whiz at Maths. DS helped him with English and he helped the others with Maths. He got 6 A*s and went to Imperial and is now a statistician for the NHS.

The other problem with the challenge is that if you do it on an iPad a number of images don't load so you can't answer them. If you do it do it on a big pooter.

We had to do that with the Vietnamese boat children when they first arrived in this country, MiceElf, with string and tin cans. It was to teach them the English words, radius, circumference, etc., but they were most upset that they did not get exactly 3.142 for pi.

I surprised MiceElf by getting most of them right. Except that silly pond question. I used to know how to do it, but forgot years ago. Instead of faffing around with all those pi, r and squared I'd just walk round the edge with a piece of garden twine and measure that.

120%

Done it. 98%. So pleased as I am teaching my grandson maths. I know which one I got wrong as well.