Real-Life Math -- Solution
To begin with, you need to calculate each mark as a percentage.
Participation:
8
/ 10 x 100 = 80 percent
80 x 0.10 = 8
Tamara gets 8 of the possible
10 percentage points for participation.
Final exam:
78 / 100
x 100 = 78 percent
78 x 0.25 = 19.5
Tamara gets 19.5 of the
possible 25 percentage points for the final exam.
Mid-terms:
82
/ 100 x 100 = 82 percent
82 x 0.15 = 12.3
75 / 100 x 100 = 75
percent
75 x 0.15 = 11.25
The mid-terms are worth 15 percent
each. Tamara gets 12.3 out of 15 for the first exam and 11.25 out of 15 for
the other.
Hand-ins:
The hand-in assignments as a whole are worth
35 percent. One way to solve this part of the question is to add all the scores
together, find the percentage for the total, and then calculate 35 percent
of that.
Total possible marks for all hand-ins = 10 + 10 + 10 + 10
+ 15 + 15
Total possible marks for all hand-ins = 70
Now you
need to find out how many of the 70 possible marks Tamara got.
Total
marks Tamara got = 8 + 9 + 10 + 7.5 + 12 + 14
Total marks Tamara got =
60.5
Find the percentage.
60.5 / 70 x 100 = 86 percent
86
x 0.35 = 30
Tamara got 30 out of a possible 35 percentage points
for the hand-in assignments.
Now you add up all the marks. The final
tally will be out of 100, which gives you the percentage.
Final
mark = 8 + 19.5 + 12.3 + 11.25 + 30
Final mark = 81
Tamara's
final mark is 81 percent.
Foreign language teachers have to be experts
in language -- not mathematics. They use math for calculating grades, but
little else.
"I would say, for a language teacher, math skills are
not really required," says Timothy Pope. He teaches German and French.
"Nowadays,
if you use a computer for record-keeping, you can use a spreadsheet that's
set up to calculate grades," he explains. "But even there you need to set
the spreadsheet up according to the distribution of grades, so you need a
little math."