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I had to look this up as I didn’t grow up in the States. It was A&W. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr... Crazy.
This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.
https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractio...
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Fractions and negative numbers. And, to be fair, they're the first math concepts that aren't intuitive. Which IMHO leads to some people not studying, then feeling lost, then rationalizing their lack of effort as "I'm bad at math" or "Math is hard."
Fractions are pretty intuitive. Is the pizza or cake analogy really that advanced?
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TurboTax is marketing to the kind of people who think getting big refunds is a good thing. That's generally people with lower incomes, so this fits that target.
It is generally a good thing for folks who live paycheck to paycheck. Higher withholding forces more budgeting, and then they get a big paycheck once a year to pay off whatever
A 1040 + W2 might the only equation these people need to solve for.
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Next I’d like them to go after windshield chip repair shops and pharmacies that advertise “free*” services. Where free == paid by your insurance. Assuming your insurance will pay for all of it. Free doesn’t mean paid for someone you paid to handle it for you.
I asked one of those chip repair guys how it worked years ago. He said the insurance companies pay them to repair the chips, because those little fixes are much cheaper than paying to replace the whole windshield when it inevitably cracks. It seems like a win-win-win. The driver gets the windshield fixed with no out of pocket cost, the chip guy makes some cash, and the insurance company saves money. Where’s the downs…
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Fractions are pretty intuitive. Is the pizza or cake analogy really that advanced?
One third times one fifth loses a lot of folks. As does addition and subtraction of fractions that don’t start with the same denominator, for that matter. They might figure out what to do to pass the test, but they may not get it .
I blame this on my Chemistry teacher - a class which I was also taking at the time - who spoke little English and had never taught in the United States until the year I landed in her class. I actually did reasonably well in Algebra for the first quarter or so until it all fell apart.
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of course it would not cover all cases... but I'm guessing that it would cover most people... why would I want them to have my files if all they are going to do is use them against me anyways?
> but I'm guessing that it would cover most people... Do you have any reason to believe that? Are they your documents? Can you accrue taxes independently?
just from my personal experiences... either way, the IRS has that info, if they assume people are honest... not sure why it isn't public.
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This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on.
> This story has to be apocryphal, as fractions aren't _that_ rare, especially in the U.S. with its imperial system and third of a cup measurements or quarter inches or half miles and so on. I literally had an argument with a room full of US university professors about whether or not 30% and 1/3 were the same thing.
I just saw an TurboTax Ad where a guy was like "I Like free stuff" and then it said he was "happy to read the disclaimer" on TurboTax and see that "Roughly 37% of taxpayers qualify" which he looks thoughtfully in the distance and says "Thats me!" I thought it was a funny commercial because 37% doesn't seem like a lot and Turbotax is portraying it as the average person will identify themselves as part of that 37% even…
Are they leaning in to it or are they forced to fit in the disclaimer? Seems like the strategy of the ad is to repeat the word "Free" so much people don't remember the rest and to make it seem like the disclaimer is meaningless. Even with it, it's still free.
Sounds hokey but that sort of shit has been the bread and butter of advertising since forever. A vanishingly small percentage of people are anywhere close to as rational as they think they are when buying things. Many of the most self-assuredly "skeptical, rational, well-researched consumer" types get totally snowed by the simplest marketing ideas because they're looking for sales bullshit they can empirically disprove, and most marketing is influencing people in a way that makes them think they came to the conclusion independently.
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Fractions are pretty intuitive. Is the pizza or cake analogy really that advanced?
One third times one fifth loses a lot of folks. As does addition and subtraction of fractions that don’t start with the same denominator, for that matter. They might figure out what to do to pass the test, but they may not get it .
Fractions are a bit different though - you're splitting a single thing into equal chunks. Hence, slices of pie.
Multiplying by 1/5 is really dividing by 5. Introduce that first. We already know how to do this. You split your 1/3 slice into 5 equal slices.
Do the same to the other 2/3 slices, count all the slices, and you have 15. Hence, 1/15.
As an aside, common core math is amazing. They gave my daughter a model for the distributive property that can be used to show how to do long multiplication.
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One third times one fifth loses a lot of folks. As does addition and subtraction of fractions that don’t start with the same denominator, for that matter. They might figure out what to do to pass the test, but they may not get it .
Can confirm - While I was decent at math up to a point, fractions and long division in 4th Grade sent me down a hole that took me years to get out of...until Algebra II as a junior in HS crushed me. I blame this on my Chemistry teacher - a class which I was also taking at the time - who spoke little English and had never taught in the United States until the year I landed in her class. I actually did reasonably well…
Fits in about the same space as the original problem unless it’s printed so small that you have to rewrite it, and way less room for transcription errors. I also find it clearer but that may just be me (fwiw I’m “bad at math”—I find it incredibly boring and basically can’t follow proof- and equation/identity-based stuff, I have to turn it all into algorithmic thinking to have a prayer of understanding it; i.e. my opinion on the superiority of short division is that of a mathematical imbecile, so, grain of salt)
> I blame this on my Chemistry teacher - a class which I was also taking at the time - who spoke little English and had never taught in the United States until the year I landed in her class.
It doesn’t help that in chemistry, 1 + 1 may be 1. Or 3. :-)
[edit] short division:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_division
Under the “example” section, the little superscripts are what you write in by hand on the problem as you work it, at least as I did it. 9/4 in the hundreds place is 2 with 1 remainder, so write 2 up above as part of the solution and a 1 superscript next to the 5 in the problem itself (tens place), now that’s 15, divide that, 3 goes in the tens place of the solution, write the remainder (3) next to the digit in the ones place as a superscript and do it again, if you need to keep going just add a decimal point and zeroes as required.
Way faster than working long division, takes up less space, and less error prone (imo). What’s actually going on is clearer (again, imo)