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Back in 2003, the UK government carried out a survey.
早在2003年，英國政府進行了一項調查。
And it was a survey that measured levels of numeracy in the population.
目的是了解國民的算術能力。
And they were shocked to find out that for every 100 working age adults in the country, 47 of them lacked Level 1 numeracy skills.
結果非常讓人吃驚，在英國，每100個正值工作年紀的成人中，47個缺乏一級的算術能力。
Now, Level 1 numeracy skills -- that's low-end GCSE score.
一級算術能力是GSCE考試的低端分數。
It's the ability to deal with fractions, percentages and decimals.
它是運算分數、百分數和小數的能力。
So this figure prompted a lot of hand-wringing in Whitehall.
這個數據使英國行政部門愈發的擔憂。
Policies were changed, investments were made, and then they ran the survey again in 2011.
他們改變了政策，進行了投資，然后到了2011年，他們再次進行了普查。
So can you guess what happened to this number? It went up to 49.
你們能猜到這一次的數字嗎？這次，上升到了49。
And in fact, when I reported this figure in the FT, one of our readers joked and said, "This figure is only shocking to 51 percent of the population."
事實上，當我在金融時報報道這一數據時，有個讀者開玩笑地說，“這個數據只震驚了51%的人口”。
But I preferred, actually, the reaction of a schoolchild when I presented at a school this information, who raised their hand and said,
但我實際上更喜歡一個學生的反應，有一次我在學校展示這一信息時，這個孩子舉手說道，
"How do we know that the person who made that number isn't one of the 49 percent either?"
“我們怎么知道得出這一數據的人不是49%中的一個呢？”
So clearly, there's a numeracy issue, because these are important skills for life,
很明顯，算術能力成了一個問題，畢竟這是生活中的重要技能，
and a lot of the changes that we want to introduce in this century involve us becoming more comfortable with numbers.
更何況我們還想為這個世紀帶來許多的改變，這需要我們對數字越來越應用自如。
