Yeah, everyone says there ain’t math in everyday life like in the GED math test, but look at how math makes a difference in who gets to be president? That’s a big deal… and you can see the same sort of math on the GED. So, here’s the question…
continue reading "GED Election Practice Question… Answered"

Ratios are pretty important for the GED math test. And if you can use ‘em ever day, like when you’re cooking, you’ll exercise your GED thinking muscles. It’s pretty easy, right? A ratio just shows the relationship between two numbers. 1:2 ratio means, if you got 1 of something, you have 2 of something else. So not all GED test stuff is hard.
continue reading "Rice Ratios… Gotta love that GED Math."

I’m a guy, right? So you know I don’t cook. Yeah, yeah, I got ketchup in my fridge, that’s about it. But Maria came all up in here tryin’ to teach me to make somethin’ to eat. Okay, yeah, a guy’s gotta eat.
continue reading "Rice Ratios… GED Math in the Kitchen?"

Yo. So, part of GED math is knowing how to understand data, right? What do you make of all the data we hear about elections? Yeah, that’s right, election year’s almost here, and all the candidates are yappin’ on the airwaves and tryin’ to put the best spin on their election. You know how it go!
continue reading "GED Math in Elections?"

Yo, hey, I found this sweet ride…. Chevy ‘Vette… convertible…honey blue and black leather inside. Kinda used, so it’s only $27,599. A steal, right?
continue reading "Speed GED…in a Sweet Vette…"

Hey, I just heard on the TV news, how you’re only s’posed to spend 1.5% of your year’s takehome pay on Christmas gifts… yeah, it’s that time of the year again… so if I’m makin’ $20,000 grand… 20,000 x .015 = $300 … (1% is 200, plus half that, $300)… Can’t have Christmas on 300 bucks! Gotta get my GED, start rakin’ in the real dough.

Maybe pullin’ out the calculator’s the best way to figure this one out. Here’s the deal: I gotta buy me a sweet ‘Vette for $27,599. And I can pick one of two deals:

1. $3,000 bucks off and 4.9% interest for 60 months
2. Full price and 1.9% interest for 48 months
   continue reading "GED Math… What’s the Best Deal?"

You know, one of the things that helps me out with all this GED math is doin’ estimatin’ in my head. I figured this all comes from figurin’ out how much stuff costs, you know. It all comes back to the cash.

So try this… next time you go get groceries, keep track in your head how much you’re spending. Try to estimate the costs… you know, $1.50 instead of $1.38… to make it easier to add together the amounts in your head. When you get in the checkout line, see how close you were, and try to get closer each time you buy groceries. Maybe start with just buyin’ a few things, then more each time. That way, you can build up your street math, just like I got in my head.

Hey. I’ve been looking for ways to mix up GED preparation with real life… and last time I talked about how you can look up information about different jobs on http://www.bls.gov/oco/. I looked up the information about being a mechanic. And it kept talking about “median.”
continue reading "GED Math in Real Life… Mean? Median?"

Y’all know I do some auto work, right? Well, I started wonderin’ if I was really making the money I ought to make. So I went to this website that tells all about different jobs: http://www.bls.gov/oco/

I looked up mechanics, and here’s what it said:

Median hourly earnings of automotive service technicians and mechanics, including commission, were $15.60 in May 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $11.31 and $20.75 per hour. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $8.70, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $26.22 per hour. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of service technicians in May 2004 were as follows:

Local government…..$38,160
Automobile dealers…..38,060
Automotive repair and maintenance…..28,810
Gasoline stations…..28,030
Automotive parts, accessories, and tire stores…..27,180

Well, the first thing I see is that mechanics make like $10,000 bucks more working for auto dealers! Man, I gotta look into that!

But then, I started seeing that everything said “median.” What’s that mean? Why’re they using “median”? Do they mean average? I’m going to look it up… see what it means and see if I can figure out why they use that. Gimme a holler in a comment if you have any ideas!