Real-Life Math
You are a fruit and vegetable grader. A shipment of fresh grapes has arrived from Chile. It's your responsibility to inspect the fruit and grade it to determine how much, if any, product damage or defects are present.
Your calculations will determine if the fruit is up to standards and whether the importer pays full price to the supplier.
"Tasks include getting an accurate count of the number of pieces in a lot, calculating the totals and then percentages of each defect identified in a lot, and being able to apply those percentage results in a meaningful way," says grader Jeffrey Honey.
"I've seen people who have been very quick learners with a good eye for identifying things, but couldn't add or divide, so they couldn't calculate accurate results," he says.
The U.S. standards for grades of table grapes allow for the following defects:
- For bunches failing to meet color requirements -- 10 percent
- For bunches failing to meet the requirement for minimum diameter of berries -- 10 percent
- For off-size bunches and for bunches and berries failing to meet the remaining requirement for the grade, including permanent defects, serious damage and decay -- 12 percent
There are 50 bunches of grapes in each of 500 boxes in the load.
In your random sampling of 10 boxes, you find 15 bunches that fail to meet color requirements, 45 bunches that fail to meet the minimum requirement for diameter of berries and 12 bunches with serious damage.
Does the order meet the grade?