all in the roulette wheel landing on any one number is 1/38 (including zero and double zero). The roulette wheel does not know or care or react to what numbers have previously come up. Thus if the number 14 has come up three times in a row, the probability that it will come up the next time is still 1/38, not 1/38 x 1/38 x 1/38 x 1/38. The desired outcome of 14 is utterly independent of what went before it.
Paulos asserts that the root of innumeracy is the inability or unwillingness of Americans to tackle word problems (99). Unfortunately, life is not composed of such neat arithmetic problems as 1130 x 1.051, but rather of word problems such as "You purchase a shirt for 30 dollars. There is a five percent sales tax rate. How much do you end up paying for the shirt?" If students were subjected to word problems to an early age, that is, if the abstract principles of mathematics and arithmetic were made more applicable to the real world from a young age, students would be less likely to shy away from these principles later on. It is not enough to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, but when it is appropriate to
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