What Can GED Math Do for You?

Yo, one thing I know, math is part of life. Y’all pay yo’ bills every month, right? Gotta balance income and outgo? Math, right? Not jus’ that, but thinkin’ about what you wanna do after you get yo’ GED? Best payin’ jobs, all about math. Construction, design, computers, fightin’ fires, all of ‘em use math one way or another. Not to mention trackin’ all yo’ favorite sports teams. I got dat down. Found this article, ’bout eighth graders learnin’ all about how math leads on to better careers… somethin’ we all could learn: Math Is Everywhere

Plus, remember ’bout Stephen Wolfram? Yup, mathematics guy, wrote some software to do advanced math real quick. Well, he’s starting a new online website, and here’s what it does… You type in your question, and it’s got a big encyclopedia of a bunch of info, right? So it figures out your question… and sends you the answer. Don’t think that math ain’t at the bottom of it. The website’s up later this month… called Wolfram Alpha. so check it out, the next cool thing, brought to y’all by MATH.

Math ain’t too hard. Jus’ take it step by step, once you get the basics down, you get there. How ’bout a practice question to get the juices goin’? Here it is…

Annie is an interior designer, and she’s got a budget of $345 to buy fabric for drapes. She needs 12 yards of fabric. The fabric that she really wants, Fabric A, costs $29 per yard. Her second choice, Fabric B, costs $27.50 per yard, and her third choice, Fabric C, costs $26 per yard. She wants to buy her top choice that she can afford and stay in budget. Which fabric should she buy?

1) Fabric A

2) Fabric B

3) Fabric C

4) All the fabrics are too expensive.

So… what’d'ya get? And how’d ya go about it? Here’s what I figure… I could multiply the cost of each fabric by 12 yards to find out how much each would cost, but that seems like too much work to me. So I wanna take the shortest short-cut I got. Here’s what I did… take the total budget, $345, and divide it by 12 yards of fabric. That gonna give me the budget PER YARD, then I can jus’ compare that with all the prices.  $345 divided by 12 is $28.75, so I got my max price per yard. Now, I can’t afford the $29 fabric, jus barely. Don’t know bout you, but I’d be all smooth-talkin’ the fabric store owner to try to get a discount. But dat ain’ t part of the question. So the answer’s 2, Answer B, the $27.50 fabric.

And, you notice, this GED question’s all ’bout a real-life job that’d really use this kinda math. So, keep it in mind… math’s real good for your future!