Since I'm in the USA, I also teach inches and feet in addition to cm and mm.
I've learned by experience that I can't assume that my students know how to
measure using traditional American "English" units. In fact, they've
probably had more exposure to the metric system than the English system in
school. They'll give me a measurement of 3.7 inches when the measurement is
3 and 7/16", and then when I explain why this isn't appropriate, they'll
turn around and show me a 2 and 4/10 cm. *sigh* Most of the time in "real
life" they're only transferring numbers...measure the bookcase, measure the
wall, then see if the bookcase will fit. They don't actually need absolute
numbers for that, so their errors in reading scales don't matter.
Vickie Frohne
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