I hate math and totally suck at it. As such, I have my own quirky methods when it comes to numbers. In this example, I would add 20 to 26, then minus 3, which equals 43. Voila, and in 2 simple steps I’m done. CC requires unnecessary and confusing steps that would boggle most minds.
See, I added 4 to the 26 first and then subtracted 4 in the end.
I think my way is faster.
I’m old. I added the right-hand column, got 13, mentally *wrote* down 3 then carried the one to the left hand column, added the left hand column and got 4, resulting in the answer of 43 in about a half second.
Yesterday we had a meeting with a forester. He is about 40 and has, obviously, a college degree. The arithmetical problem concerned $8.00 per acre and 40 acres. He struggled. I said “8x4 is 32”. He looked at me, impressed, and said :”I can’t do math in my head.” I said, “It wasn’t *math*, it was the times tables. You are too young to have memorized them.” He looked at me blankly. He did not know there were times tables that people used to memorize. I, BTW, am NOT good at math.