All right, background info time. (You can skip this.) The Dutch lower house has been pushing for a mandatory basic mathematics tests for secondary school students. Something about folks being bad at maths, which is probably true.
As you might imagine, students are sorta pissed about the entire thing, so a student interest group made a bunch of ministers take the test. Guess what? They all failed. Some, undoubtedly, for lack of trying, but that's a bit sad all the same.
So, for the interesting part: A translation of the test. Give it a shot and tell us your score!
Source: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/sites/default/files/content/documents/2015/02/10/REKENTOETS%203F.pdf
2004 was a leap year. February 13th 2004 was a Friday.
What day was April 1st 2004?
A Monday
B Wednesday
C Thursday
D Saturday
Question 2
Circumference circle = diameter * PI (=3.14)
Rear wheel diameter = 68cm
A cyclist is cycling. Every revolution of his pedals results in thrice as many revolutions of his rear wheel. He sees he's made 1000 revolutions of his pedals on his computer.
How many kilometres has he covered? Round to 1 decimal.
Question 3
How much faster did she download the film? Round to whole minutes.
Question 4
(You might want to look at page 5 of the pdf for this one, there's an image.)
A drawing of a house drawn lengthwise on a rectangular sheet of paper (wider than high) is drawn to a 1:30 scale leaving only a small margin on the sides. The house is 15m wide.
Paper sizes (in mm):
A1 594*841
A2 420*594
A3 297*420
A4 210*297
A5 148*210
A6 105*148
What standard size paper was this house drawn on?
Question 5
Volume sphere = 4/3 * PI (=3.14) * radius^3
Volume house = 400 cubic metres (m^3)
The volume of the largest air balloon on Earth is roughly equal to a sphere with a radius of 16m.
How many houses would it take to equal this volume?
Question 6
Stairs formula: 2 * step height + step depth must be between 570mm and 630mm
A carpenter has to construct stairs with a step height of 185mm. He wants it to meet the stairs formula requirement.
What is the greatest possible step depth he can use in cm?
Answers (3/6 is a passing grade)
As you might imagine, students are sorta pissed about the entire thing, so a student interest group made a bunch of ministers take the test. Guess what? They all failed. Some, undoubtedly, for lack of trying, but that's a bit sad all the same.
So, for the interesting part: A translation of the test. Give it a shot and tell us your score!
Source: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/sites/default/files/content/documents/2015/02/10/REKENTOETS%203F.pdf
- You have 10 minutes to answer all six questions (take all the time you need, we're not watching anyway)
- You may use a calculator (use http://google.com/search?q=1+1 if you don't have one at hand)
2004 was a leap year. February 13th 2004 was a Friday.
What day was April 1st 2004?
A Monday
B Wednesday
C Thursday
D Saturday
Question 2
Circumference circle = diameter * PI (=3.14)
Rear wheel diameter = 68cm
A cyclist is cycling. Every revolution of his pedals results in thrice as many revolutions of his rear wheel. He sees he's made 1000 revolutions of his pedals on his computer.
How many kilometres has he covered? Round to 1 decimal.
Question 3
Aisha is downloading a 37.6Gb film. Because download speed has increased she's done sooner.
How much faster did she download the film? Round to whole minutes.
Question 4
(You might want to look at page 5 of the pdf for this one, there's an image.)
A drawing of a house drawn lengthwise on a rectangular sheet of paper (wider than high) is drawn to a 1:30 scale leaving only a small margin on the sides. The house is 15m wide.
Paper sizes (in mm):
A1 594*841
A2 420*594
A3 297*420
A4 210*297
A5 148*210
A6 105*148
What standard size paper was this house drawn on?
Question 5
Volume sphere = 4/3 * PI (=3.14) * radius^3
Volume house = 400 cubic metres (m^3)
The volume of the largest air balloon on Earth is roughly equal to a sphere with a radius of 16m.
How many houses would it take to equal this volume?
Question 6
Stairs formula: 2 * step height + step depth must be between 570mm and 630mm
A carpenter has to construct stairs with a step height of 185mm. He wants it to meet the stairs formula requirement.
What is the greatest possible step depth he can use in cm?
Answers (3/6 is a passing grade)
1: C (Thursday)
2: 6.4
3: 5
4. A2
5. 42.87 up to 43
6. 26
2: 6.4
3: 5
4. A2
5. 42.87 up to 43
6. 26
I failed.
