by Bill Graham

If you took a survey of middle school students and asked them what topic in math gave them the most trouble, I'd bet lots of them would say fractions. Many adults would agree. You can now buy calculators that will "do" fractions; common denominators, reducing and the rest.

At a math conference several years ago, I walked in at the end of a presentation. The speaker was saying that if you had been able to solve the problem he had just finished discussing, that was an indication you really understood fractions. That sounded like a challenge to me, so I copied down the problem from someone else and began to work on it. I stumbled around for a while and began to conclude I must not have really understood fractions after all. I did eventually get it, but I wish it hadn't taken so long. See how you do.

In a town, three-fifths of the women are married to two-thirds of the men. What fractional part of the town's adults are married? (That sure sounds easy.)