We often hear sportsmen and women say that they gave a hundred and ten percent in their efforts during a match, not just a hundred percent.
Some even go as far as saying they gave a hundred and twenty percent! Others claim they gave a hundred and fifty percent! Hello! Are we in an auction here? Any advances on a hundred and fifty percent…? Going! Going! Gone to the man dripping with sweat lying on the ground!
While we get the point they were making, they do not make sense literally. A hundred percent is a hundred percent! It is the maximum.
You cannot have more than a hundred percent! And if they are going to use such language, why do they simply give a number just over the hundred percent?
Why do they not say they have given twenty thousand percent? Of course, these sportsmen and women are using hyperbole (without realising it, perhaps!) to say that they have given their all – and more (again, how is that possible! Have they gone into an overdraft?)
It is not just sportsmen and women who love percentages; we all seem to love them.
Search on the internet and you can find some extraordinary percentage claims.
One website claims that there is almost a 50% chance that our lost remote control is stuck between our sofa cushions and that four percent of lost remotes are found in the fridge or freezer, and two percent turn up somewhere outdoors or in the car. Seriously?
- Prostrate pass rates
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It does not mean our remote is in sofa, fridge or in car – it is where we last put it!
Then we come across the claim that “fifty two percent of people admit that they are likely to forget their partner’s birthday” – really?
But the statistic might suggest other things; it might just mean that forty-eight percent do not admit it (though they do forget it).
Maybe the fifty-two percent who were asked were all elderly people? Or forgetful people?
Many of these results are arbitrary if the sample taken is small. Equally many such claims will be irrelevant.
“Thirty-six percent of people have fallen in love with someone at first sight” is one claim – so what? Is there any significance in falling in love at first sight? It also says nothing at all as to whether they stayed in love or got married.
“Elsewhere we find that “Almost two out of five people (thirty-nine percent, if you cannot work it out!) have stood in a queue for several hours” – really? So?
Anyway, that has no significance or accuracy here in Zimbabwe as five out of five people will have stood in a queue for well over several hours at some stage!
Maybe we should view these percentages in the same manner as the Banksy, the famous street artist, when he declared that “A recent survey of North American males found forty-two percent were overweight, thirty-four percent were critically obese and eight percent ate the survey”! Maybe the remaining folk are so thin that they cannot be found!
One of the favourite questions prospective parents ask of a school Head is “What is your percentage pass rate?” One Head’s response was: “I will tell you if you tell me why you want (or need) to know”.
Usually, the parent is left slightly flummoxed, mumbling and stuttering, coming to the final conclusion that he was asking because all parents ask that question.
Is that another statistic that a hundred percent of parents ask that question?
The percentage pass rate is meaningless, on the whole (in ninety-nine point nine cases, if you want to have a percentage).
What happened last year with those pupils writing those exams answering those questions taught by those teachers has nothing to do with this year’s or more specifically your child.
One hundred percent. What is more, ninety percent of parents who ask for the percentage pass rate forget about it when their child’s results come out. Who cares about them, after all?
Tim Kurkjian, baseball Hall of Famer, viewed the matter in this manner: “No one loves the numbers more than I do, but numbers don’t measure everything, especially when it comes to evaluating defence. And in the end, I am going to trust Buck Showalter’s eyes more than a set of statistics devised by someone who never played the game.”
Parents are becoming prostrate over the pass rate; they are lying stretched out on ground face downwards. Trust your eyes – a hundred percent.
- Tim Middleton is the executive director of the Association of Trust Schools [ATS]. The views expressed in this article, however, are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of the ATS.
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website: www.atschisz
