And it was a survey that measured levels of numeracy in the population. 目的是了解国民的算术能力。

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. 结果非常让人吃惊，在英国，每100个正值工作年纪的成人中，47个缺乏一级的算术能力。

Now, Level 1 numeracy skills -- that's low-end GCSE score. 一级算术能力是GSCE考试的低端分数。

It's the ability to deal with fractions, percentages and decimals. 它是运算分数、百分数和小数的能力。

So this figure prompted a lot of hand-wringing in Whitehall. 这个数据使英国行政部门愈发的担忧。

Policies were changed, investments were made, and then they ran the survey again in 2011. 他们改变了政策，进行了投资，然后到了2011年，他们再次进行了普查。

So can you guess what happened to this number? It went up to 49. 你们能猜到这一次的数字吗？这次，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." 事实上，当我在金融时报报道这一数据时，有个读者开玩笑地说，“这个数据只震惊了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,  但我实际上更喜欢一个学生的反应，有一次我在学校展示这一信息时，这个孩子举手说道，

"How do we know that the person who made that number isn't one of the 49 percent either?" “我们怎么知道得出这一数据的人不是49%中的一个呢？”

So clearly, there's a numeracy issue, because these are important skills for life,  很明显，算术能力成了一个问题，毕竟这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. 更何况我们还想为这个世纪带来许多的改变，这需要我们对数字越来越应用自如。