Have You Ever Used Junior Cert Maths In Real Life?

When you're older, in college or in the work place and days like this happen when people point out to you that it's Junior Cert Results, everyone harps on about how little it matters and how nothing you do in 3rd year of school is used when your old and out there in the big bad world.

So, considering that I write all day, I decided to go back and have a look at my Junior Cert Maths Paper 1 (2005, in case you were wondering) and see which of the problems and sums I've actually used in my time since.

Firsty lets look at some of the maths I've never used...

At no point in my life since leaving school have I  a) attempted to find the square root of anything, or b) not used a calculator to find the answer to a sum.

k squiggly line Q is not something that  appears to be necessary nor useful to my every day life, henceforth the 3 √16 will have to remain as it was.

Sin, Cos and Tan

You would probably think this is an obvious one, trigonometric functions aren't all that useful in everyday life. The only Tan I've been getting is on the beach.

And now for the maths I have used...

Now this one is a bit of column A bit of column B, I'd like to state that I'm actually capable of doing my own taxes, but it's actually something my mum does for me... The higher rate of 42% is something I reckon I won't need to worry about for a while either. That being said, I still know / complain about how much money the government is swindling me out of every year.

I'm not a fish farmer so this one usually goes - I owe the bank 1,000 euro. That number increases by 40% each year. How much will I owe them and never intend to pay them back in 3 years?  This question, I ask of myself a lot.

Damn travel agents! This is one for the future J1ers out there. You will be ripped off, no matter how hard you try the Visa people will get ya, it's just a fact of life but at least converting to Dollars is easier than converting to baht, in the back of a rickshaw, in the middle of the Koh San Road.

So.. being someone that was never really good at maths or who never really uses it in everyday life I think I can say that the junior cert wasn't all that important for me but If you have a job where those sums above are in use let us know.