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back to article A fifth of Europeans can't work out how much a TV costs

A full 20 per cent of European consumers are too befuddled to work out which is the cheaper flat screen TV when given a choice of two*, European Commission research has found. The figures, released today, show that fewer than two-thirds of consumers could read an ingredients label, while 18 per cent of shoppers are flummoxed …

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  1. bitmap animal
    Alert

    Doesn't surprise me

    There are quite a few people at my work who would struggle with that TV question, the standard of basic maths is generally appalling.

    My son was at the supermarket recently and the cashier (20ish year old man) had real difficulty in counting about 80p in change. It's everywhere.

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    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
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      Sir

      Does this mean that if the average IQ is, by default, 100, then my IQ keeps steadily rising year on year?

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    2. Daniel Evans
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      Change

      I regularly try to work out the amount of change and exact coinage a cashier should give before they manage to - the amount of times I know I need £3.11 change before they've punched the "£5" button on their cash register is embarassing.

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      1. peter 45
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        Happy

        Embarassing? - only for them

        I do it regularly, just to show them up. What is even funnier is when I have already added the entire bill up and present them the exact change before they have finished 'beeping' the goods through. It sometimes works to my advantage as when they state the amount, I can tell them they must have keyed in a wrong value 'cos it is incorrect. I did it to a bank teller once when paying in several cheques. Now that was embarassing.

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        1. G28
          Reply Icon
          WTF?

          Why

          Why would that be embarrassing? Generally stock is "beeped" through, or scanned, not only calculate the total but as part of stock control as well. I can honestly say that if I worked in a shop and had to serve you I'd be fairly unmoved by your amazing maths skills.

          It might also be worthwhile remembering that the next time you tell your excellent teller story that nobody cares, everyone makes mistakes from time to time. Oh and that it's not excellent.

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        2. Dave Lawton
          Reply Icon
          FAIL

          Re: Embarassing? - only for them

          I looked on with amazement when a bank teller reached for a calculator, to add up 4 cheques, all of value £15.00

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    3. ravenviz Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Doesn't surprise me

      Giving them the remainder of change so you can get rid of shrapnel is another good one, e.g. passing over a £5 note and 37p in change for an item that costs £3.87.

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      1. Danny 14
        Reply Icon
        Stop

        indeed

        Unfortunately that is an issue. I often get rid of low value change to get higher coinage in return. I must say that B&Q usually have older staff - never had an issue there, the same in our local chippy but I often get blank looks in supermarkets.

        Shame really as it's a life skill.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Flame

        Shrapnel

        Oh, come on, checkout persons do not have A* level Maths.

        (Waiting for the flames......)

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        1. Naughtyhorse
          Reply Icon

          They might

          a level maffs aint what it used to be!

          you get a pass if when asked to add 6 and 8 you take off only 1 shoe in order to compute the answer.

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        2. ravenviz Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Unhappy

          Re: shrapnel

          With the young jobless count these days and people getting what they can they may well have! :(

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    4. Jerome 0
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Irrelevant

      Disturbing though it is that so many people can't work out 10% of £500, it's also entirely irrelevant to the question this research claims to be investigating. How many shops do you know that mark an item "10% off" but don't highlight the price after the discount?

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    5. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Why doesn't it surprise you?

      I think you'll find that "what's everywhere" are shit surveys.

      Population of the EU: 501,260,000

      Population surveyed: 56,471

      Percentage of total population surveyed: 0.01126581%

      Another non-comprehensive survey which has been generalised beyond its scope.

      Why anyone pays any attention to <strikethrough>these detailed and comprehensive studies</strikethrough> this bollocks escapes me.

      In another comprehensive survey I asked 5 people passing my house what they thought of The Register. Apparently, judging from the results obtained, no-one at all has heard of it.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    o dear

    Seriously, how are businesses supposed to account for the ever deepening stupidity of the average person, and it seems the lower you go the dumber people become.

    le sigh~~~~

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    1. Old Handle
      Reply Icon
      Go

      That's easy

      Offer a 10% discount.

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  3. nemo20000

    Or more accurately

    20% of Europeans don’t know what “20% of Europeans” means.

    We’re doomed, DOOMED.

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    1. Marvin the Martian
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      And in other shock news:

      Half the plebs is even more stupid that the average punter.

      Full details at 11-ish, or whenever we've worked them out.

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      1. Richard IV
        Reply Icon
        Coat

        Re: And in other shock news

        Only if "average" means the median and the mode doesn't equal the median.

        Mine's the one with holes for an above average* number of arms

        * meaning the arithmetic mean

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        1. longbeast
          Reply Icon
          Happy

          2.000043

          Can you be so sure that there aren't a few people with extra arms?

          Just to confuse the count, I'm going to stubbornly insist that I have four. Two of my arms have shoes on, admittedly, but that means nothing.

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  4. Clive Galway
    Stop

    Surely the title should be "A fifth of europeans can't do maths"?

    I fail to see why they confused the issue with mention of TVs, its a simple maths problem and has nothing to do with consumerism.

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    1. GatesFanbois
      Reply Icon

      title

      Surely the title should be "A fifth of europeans can't do arithmetic"

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      1. Shaun 1
        Reply Icon

        Also

        Four fifths of Brits can't spell rithmetic

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        1. Danny 14
          Reply Icon

          aye

          maybe out of reading and riting that was their worst of the 3 R's

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          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Thumb Up

            The real 3 Rs

            Ready, wRiting and Reckoning :D

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        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Four fifths

          And the other two fifths can't add up!

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          1. ravenviz Silver badge
            Reply Icon
            Joke

            Re: four fifths

            And 1000000% don't understand binary!

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  5. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Coat

    TV Price Test

    I blame the schools. Back in the day (cue sound of violins...), circa 1960 or so, we used to do mental arithmetic every day. Naturally there were no calculators apart from the venerable Abacus and the odd tabulating machine.

    These days, I've seen shop assistants reach for their calculator to add a few simple numbers (both less than 20)

    Don't get me started on approximation... now that is a lost art indeed.

    Mine's the one with a 58.5ohm resistor in the pocket...

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    1. Oliver Mayes
      Reply Icon

      Don't blame the schools

      If someone can't work out what 10% of 500 is then they're likely beyond help.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't blame the schools

        >If someone can't work out what 10% of 500 is then they're likely beyond help.

        Or a politician calculating the interest repayments on his non-existing house

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    2. Bassey
      Reply Icon

      Re: Steve Davies 3

      "I blame the schools...we used to do mental arithmetic every day."

      As they do now Steve. And I know plenty of people educated in the 60s who wouldn't be able to answer that question. Many people from that era can't read or write either - my wife volunteers at the local school in the evenings teaching adults basic reading, writing and arithmetic and they are NEVER short of students in their 50s and 60s. The "Education Today" thing is just a myth put about by a lazy media.

      A decent proportion of today's GCSE maths is done as a series of mental arithmetic questions. The students have a pen and an answer sheet. Nothing else. The teacher stands at the front and reads out a series of questions. You have X seconds to write down the answer (and only the answer - if you scribble notes or workings out you lose marks) before the teacher reads the next question.

      But it is far easier for the media to make out that kids aren't taught certain skills or are lazy than to find out the truth.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Down

        I'll have to ask my sister (a maths teacher) if she has ever heard if this?

        What I do know is that the lower level papers test at a level that an average 8 year old in the 60's would find insulting.

        Things like measure a line, read a simple scale and count the shaded squares on a 4x4 grid.

        These are Exams that serve no purpose at all, as they do not test for how smart the kid is, but just how stupid they are.

        When they are that thick potential employers don't care about exam results; just can they push a broom in a straight line and turn up to work regular.

        Hopefully the new rules for school league tables that exclude all the ICT exams (~4 of them) and other exams that are used to pretend kids have been given an education will disappear.

        The next stage should be some simple honesty and stop lying to people that going to university and getting a degree in there current hobby will do anything other than make them poor.

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      2. Naughtyhorse
        Reply Icon

        I smell a maffs teacher

        desperately trying to justify the cliff that standards have dropped off in the last 30 years.

        average school leaver today is funtionally illiterate

        average graduate today is functionally inumerate

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    3. peter 45
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Sorry to disagree

      I would normally lament the education system of this country, but it is not universal. My nephew was being taught mental arithmetic at primary school. I don’t just mean how to add up two numbers in his head, but mental tricks like how to multiply by 5 or 9 or work out VAT at 17.5%. Only thing I remember from my Primary School days was screwing with my teacher’s head by continuing the recital of the times table beyond x12. Tee Hee.

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      1. mccp
        Reply Icon

        VAT at 17.5% ?

        Keep up - we're at 20% VAT nowadays.

        I'm convinced that they made a big mistake here - most people found it non-trivial to work out how much tax they were paying when it was 17.5%. Now it's 20%, it's simple for most to work out that their new £499 TV includes £100 tax.

        In France the VAT rate is 19.6% and loads of other countries have the rate set at 18%, 19% or 21%. I'm sure that obfuscation is the name of the game here.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Let me be one of many...

          ...to point out that

          >Now it's 20%, it's simple for most to work out that their new £499 TV includes £100 tax.

          is wrong your 499 GBP tele includes 84.17 GBP tax

          Apparently not so simple.

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          1. Anonymous Coward
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            Anonymous Coward

            Are you sure?

            If the TV costs £499 inc VAT, I make the VAT content £83.16666666666666667 (£415.83333333333333 Ex VAT)

            But then IANAA so I could be wrong....

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        2. deadlift
          Reply Icon
          FAIL

          Maths, you say?

          Actually the VAT on a TV costing £499 is just under £85...

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    4. Steve X
      Reply Icon

      1960's mental arithmetic

      And that was in pounds, shillings and pence, when calculating a discount meant more than just moving a decimal point.

      How many of "today's yoof" would even know where to begin calculating 10% discount off £3 7s 5¼d in their head?

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      1. Marcus Aurelius
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        10% of £3 7s 51/4d

        Well you could convert to d and back again

        so 3x240+7*12+5.25 = 720+84+5.25 = 809.25d

        So 10% of that is 81d, leaving about 728.25d = £3 0s 8.25d (give or take a farthing)

        Or another way

        10% of £3 = 6s = 72d

        10% of 7s = 8.4d

        10% of 5.25s = 0.5d

        For a total of 72+8.4+0.5 = 80.9d = 6s 8.9d

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    5. davemcwish
      Reply Icon
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Steve Davies 3

      I sat my then Scottish 'O' Grades in the early 80's. At that time there was a separate exam in Arithmetic (as distinct from other branches of Secondard School Mathmatics - Trig, Geometry, Calculus); no calculators just a small book of log tables, pencil, eraser, blank working paper and your brain.

      I recall that one person in their mocks did so badly in the multiple choice/guess that they'd have got a higher score if they'd just answered "A" (OR "B" or "C" OR "D") for every question.

      PARIS: The proof that lack of intellect is an inspiration to some

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  6. John I'm only dancing

    Cheapest TV

    Is the one bought off the bloke in the pub who happens to work in the warehouse.

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  7. alain williams Silver badge

    Innumeracy is horrible

    A few years ago at a (nameless shop) I was buying ink jet cartridges. There was a 10% offer if I bought 2. So I decided to stock up and bought 4 - so the shop assistant offered me a 20% discount!

    I wonder how many people read agreements on web sites ? A year ago I got a new VAT number, this involved ticking a box to say that I had read the adjacent link. Only trouble was that the link was broken -- it took me 3/4 hour on the phone to report the fault abd be told where the agreement was. I doubt that it stopped people signing up.

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    1. jonathanb Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: contracts

      Read the 404 error, print off a copy for your records, confirm that you have read it.

      The real small print isn't to your advantage, so it is better not to be bound by it.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yet...

    ... the vast majority of them has A levels. And in maths too.

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    1. R J Tysoe
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      I'm waiting...

      ... for the inevitable responses to this post from people who don't have english A levels.

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    2. The lone lurker
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      I can has A levels?

      I'm guessing you pride yourself on your own intellectual skills? Yet simple grammar escapes you.

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      1. Steve X
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        Grammar

        "majority" is a singular noun.

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        1. frank ly
          Reply Icon
          Headmaster

          The Majority Report

          'Majority' is the singular of the noun; hence, "There is a majority", "A majority was obtained".

          However, 'The majority of them' is a reference to a number of people (or things), where that number must be greater than one. Hence, "The majority of them were confused."

          Can we get a majority concensus on this?

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          1. Steve Foster
            Reply Icon
            Badgers

            @The Majority Report

            Only after you learn how to spell consensus. Or were you trying to take the (purple) michael out of the recent attempt to glean lots of new marketing detail for the Americans?

            (The obvious icon choice)

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          2. Michael Dunn
            Reply Icon
            Thumb Up

            Majority of them is a reference?

            Sir, you are a C programmer, who understands pointers.

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