# Intelligence, Literacy Level, Carpet?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-literacy-level-carpet/992053>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 25, 2023, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-literacy-level-carpet/992053 "2023-10-25T02:18:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 27

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-literacy-level-carpet/992053/27 "2023-10-25T14:38:36Z")

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> [@bordelond](#):
>
> My first, second, and third instinct with this problem was to convert 12" x 9" into 108 square feet and multiply 108 x $9.49. But that’s wrong – you have to pick up that it’s $9.49 per square _ **yard** _.

Knowing from general knowledge that carpet in the USA is _always_ priced by the square yard, I immediately noticed the room was very conveniently 3x4 yards = 12 square yards. Which would be 12sy x $10 = $120 less roughly 12 x 50 cents = $6 so ~$114 overall.

If the answers were multiple choice that’d have taken about 7 seconds total.

But I spent the last 35 years doing simple arithmetic like that every few minutes for work.

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