Maths – the way it used to be
Thursday 24th November 2011, 6:55AM GMT.
ONE of my younger readers, a stripling of 87 who is concerned about declining school standards, dug out the geometry papers he sat a few weeks before war broke out in 1939, writes Peter Rhodes.
Here is a typical question: “Two intersecting circles have radii 5in and 3.75in and the length of the common chord is 6in. Using the property that the line of centres bisects the common chord, find the distance between the centres when they are on opposite sides of the common chord.”
The paper was taken by boys aged 15.
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The answer is 6.25 inches.
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One question on a recent maths g.c.s.e. paper was as follows
50,000
Write the above figure in words
Says it all
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