From the Daily Telegraph:
Army fitness slips, but female soldiers close the gap on menThe proportion of Army soldiers failing fitness tests has nearly doubled in three years amid concerns that personnel are losing focus because they are not being sent to war.
Female troops are also narrowing the gap with their male counterparts after years of falling behind, The Telegraph can disclose.
In 2013, 7,120 - or 9.6 per cent - of the ### personnel who were made to complete personal fitness assessments failed at least one, according to figures released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
In comparison, between January and mid-September this year ### troops - around 17.7 per cent - out of a possible 63,910 tested failed one or more.
Three years ago, just over 12 per cent of females tested failed at least once, while 9.4 per cent of men did. This year, 18.8 per cent of women and 17.6 per cent of men failed one or more assessments.
One recently retired Army officer suggested that soldiers were finding it more difficult to focus on keeping fit because they knew they were not going on operations.
He said: "Operations sharpen the mind and focus your efforts on keeping fit - the prospect of going to Afghanistan was certainly an incentive to get fit. After all you don't want to let your mates down by being unfit and not prepared. Being shot at is hard enough when you're fit, let alone when you're out of shape."
Questions:
1) There are some
blanked out numbers to calculate.
2) In what way are
the female soldiers “closing the gap”?
3) From these figures
there clearly aren’t the same number of men and women who were tested. What is the ratio of men to women?
Comment:
If you have used any of the others that focus on rounded
values, you could ask students at this stage what the upper and lower bound is
for each blanked out number.
Answers:
1) Here is the
unedited excerpt:
In 2013, 7,120 - or 9.6 per cent - of the 74,010
personnel who were made to complete personal fitness assessments failed at
least one, according to figures released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
In comparison, between January and mid-September
this year 11,300 troops - around 17.7 per cent - out of a possible 63,910
tested failed one or more.
Here are the upper and lower bounds for each calculation
(note that the numbers of troops might be rounded to the nearest 10 or might be
exact – we can’t tell).
|
7120
|
9.6
|
74167
|
|
7120
|
9.55
|
74555
|
|
7120
|
9.65
|
73782
|
|
17.7
|
63910
|
11312
|
|
17.65
|
63910
|
11280
|
|
17.75
|
63910
|
11344
|
2) The gap between
the performance of the men and the performance of the women is smaller. Given that both have got worse that doesn’t
seem like a result to be excited about!
3) This is
interesting. I haven’t thought about
this sort of thing before. In 2013, 9.4%
of the men and 12% of the women are 9.6% of the total.
If the number of men is m
and the number of women is w then we
have
9.4m + 12w = 9.6(m+w)
2.4w = 0.2m
12w = m
So there are 12 times as many men as women.
In 2016, 17.6% of the men and 18.8% of the women are 17.7%
of the total.
17.6m + 18.8w = 17.7(m+w)
1.1w = 0.1m
11w = m
There are 11 times as many women as men.
This might mean that there are now more women in the army
than there used to be, or that more women were tested second time around, or
that the percentages given were not exact …
