Real-Life Math
This afternoon, you received email from Helen. She
subscribes to a video game newsgroup.
Helen tells you about an ongoing
struggle the newsgroup has been having. "Techies" in the group want to ask
technical questions about creating video games. "Gamers" want to discuss playing
the game, and don't want to be bothered with reading the technical questions.
The techies are angry with the gamers and nothing is being resolved.
You
tell Helen that you'll design a computer program to solve the problem.
You start by writing a computer questionnaire that asks people in the newsgroup:
- Do you consider yourself a techie or a gamer?
- How long does it take to read through 1 techie question?
- How many questions do you read every week?
Here's the information you gathered as a result
of the questionnaire:
- 80 techies answered
- 125 gamers answered
- It took both techies and gamers 6 minutes to read 1 question
- Techies read approximately 25 questions per week
- Gamers read 10 per week
From these responses, you are going to choose 1 of the following
options:
A. If the group is made up of more than 75 percent
techies, the techie questions can stay in the newsgroup.
B. If it takes
1 gamer less than 45 minutes per week to read the questions, the techie questions
can stay in the newsgroup.
C. If, on average, 1 techie spends more
than 1 hour reading the techie questions, and the number of techies is more
than 30 percent, you will suggest that the gamers and techies form 2 separate
newsgroups.
Are you going to suggest option A, B or C?