#29 Share and compare
09 April 2021Winners Announced!
We loved reading through all of your competition entries this week and were very impressed by the range of answers and explanations. You have all clearly done lots of learning over the Issue! As usual, there can only be two winners. This time they are…
daring_whale of Cheam Common Junior Academy, who thought that numbers in the news were useful, although sometimes a little confusing
and
extraordinary_redcurrant of Boutcher C of E Primary School, who put numbers in the news at a 10 on the importance scale because they help us to understand key information.
Great work, both of you!
Throughout this Issue, we have been asking you to look carefully at some of the numbers in the news. So this week, our question for you is very simple...
On a scale of one to ten, how important are numbers for helping us to understand the news?
STEP 1: Look at the scale and decide where you think numbers should go.
For example, if you say 1 or 2, then you think numbers are not very important for helping us to understand the news. If you say 5 or 6, then you think numbers are quite important.
STEP 2: Explain your choice using the word "because..."
CHALLENGE: can you use examples of numbers you have see in the Issue to explain your answer?
Here's a sentence structure that might help:
I think numbers in the news are not important/ quite important/ very important for understanding the news and I would put them at number X on the scale. I think this because... (insert reason here).
The deadline for entries is Friday April 9th at midday. PLEASE ENTER ONLY ONCE and make sure your work is your own. Good luck!
Comments (19)
Assess the source see who it from . I think this is 8 because the news that is proper should normally be like BBC ,ITV or Channel 4
I think that the numbers aren't very important in the news because to me, it's almost like they are there just to confuse me. They tend to make things look worse and more important than they actually are which can scare people making them think think that the world isn't as nice as they thought. I would put them at number three in the scale and the reason that it is higher than one is purely because it does help some people understand more clearly and in depth about the current situation.
Thanks very much for your input, poetic_passionfruit! You make a really interesting point. I think you're saying that numbers lend an air of authority that can make things seem more serious than they really are but they aren't completely unimportant because they offer clarity to some people. Can you say more, especially about the last part? How and why do numbers help some people gain a deeper understanding of a topic?
To poetic_passionfruit,
Whilst I was reading it you really drew me in at first I thought from a scale from 1-10 I thought ‘Definitely 10 but after reading your comment at first I didn’t really agree but as I saw your reasons to support your opinion I understood snd started to agree, I think you really thought about precise vocabulary and you definitely deserved that star, good job. 👏
7 because I think the numbers can change the meaning of the news story and can make it better or worse if the numbers weren't there you wouldn't have as much information.
Hello shining_journalist here and this is my opinion for #29 share and compare competition!
On the scale 1-10 I would say that i would chose the number 8 because I believe that sometimes people make fake news about things that are very serious also many people would go on the internet and that who wrote about something fake will go on the trending page which will catch people's attention.
Thank you for listening shining_journalist
I think numbers (on a scale of 1-20) should get 6.5.This is because numbers have pros and cons.The cons are that they can confuse people and make comprehending news more difficult.They can also be a great way for the people that make fake news to use,There are a lot of p
ros as well.They help us to get an exact amount of something and help us.
In my opinion, I think the numbers in the news are quite important because if someone wanted to know how many people were given the vaccine in the first 6 months then it would be shown in numbers. But on the other hand, numbers in news can tend to confuse many people and I will show this in an example.
Example: If someone was to read this '' A whopping 37% of people aged 80+ given the covid-19 vaccine within the first month '' and also read this '' Only 37% of the over 80s vaccinated against covid-19 in a whole month '' then it would puzzle people because even though they use the same number [ 37% ], one statement is negative and one is positive. And plus both statements are saying the exact same thing but in a way that makes one sound like not a lot of people were vaccinated and one sound like a lot of people were vaccinated. Also, if you check session 3 each statement has a title and for the positive statement the title is '' VACCINE SUCCESS '' but for the negative statement the title is '' WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING? ''. So I say 5/10 on the scale.
Hi, Involved_Grapefruit here!
Numbers in the news are quite important, that's why I would use the number 9.2 to express that. This is because, news reporters tend to mislead others by rounding by 20, + larger numbers. Sometimes, for example in a place in England called Bath (this is not true, for the example.) there are 29 VERY ancient trees that have been cut down. When a news reporter, a RESPONSIBLE one, hears about this news, he would round the number to 30. This is what I would also do as it can help someone's understanding. Whereas the downside to rounding is that reporters/anyone tend to spread these numbers in a negative way. This could lead to not watching the news or feeling overwhelmed.
I think that numbers in the news are really important, I would put numbers in the news at number 9 on the scale because in a few sessions ago, it says that 40% or 4 in ten news is negative but what some people do not know is that they are the same and find it confusing, so it is very important but just like shining_ journalist they may put on the news something fake about something serious and the person who read it may spread it.
Hello everyone I’m decisive_redcurrant and here is my competition entry
On a scale from 1 to 10 I believe that It would be nine as a few people have already said the news can confuse people but that is the imagine that in the wrong way for example someone could imagine it as let’s say the new says 51% of people aged 50 to 60 have been vaccinated Within two months which is a huge success because that’s nearly half of people over 50 to 60 being vaccinated within two months.
Another reason why I think the news is great at adding numbers is because it can help people to understand more about the situation program called let’s go all the way back to the American election when Donald Trump and Joe Biden were voting to work on the President of America imagine if a presenter of the new said that Half of Alaska has voted to Biden well I’m sure that most people would want to see how much the percentages or how much people have voted but they’ve only said half it could actually be 51% of people have voted Joe Biden And when they include information like this it can really help others understand that half of Alaska has voted for Biden because it says 51% of people and 50% of people is half so most people have voted joe Biden types of information like this and really help others understand the percentage or how much of this is related to the problem
Hope you have enjoyed listening to my competition entry
I think numbers in the news are not important for understanding the news and I would put them at number 4 on the scale. I think this because in my point of view, I find that numbers make the news even more confusing and could persuade you to jump to conclusions, e.g. session1, step2: “POOR SHOW, after 1 month, less than 4 in 10 people aged 80+ has been vaccinated”. Even though the headline is what’s wrong here, the number in the news adds to it because it gives the impression that “because it’s below 5 it’s very wrong and we are not improving with the covid situation.” To make it more clearer they could have changed the number to 40% which will give the impression that “we are close to 50% so we are improving and at least we’re not really low like 20%.” The reason why it’s not below 4 is because lots of people are new or don’t understand English and numbers which would make it tricky for them to understand and only some people think that numbers in the news makes it easier for them to understand facts about other topics or our current situation; covid.
I think numbers are 5 on the scale - right in the middle. I think this since numbers can sometimes be confusing, I mean a news story could say the number and put it in a sentence that makes it sound too little or too big. I also think that numbers are good since they can make you feel in control of things and they make you think that you know the facts. For example, if a news story says that nearly 50% of people have ALREADY been vaccinated then you would be happy that you know exactly how much and you have control over if you think it is a big amount of small amount. On the other hand, if a news story said that ONLY 50% of people have been vaccinated you would get deceived into thinking something that is some else's opinion. You should be able to decide whether you believe the numbers or not which is why I think numbers deserve a 5 on the scale.
daring_whale
On a scale from 1-10 about how important numbers are I would do 6 because they are there to express how much there is of something, they can also alert you, for example how many days or months are thought to be until we go back to normal. But also they can worry you or are just there to trick you into doing something because someone can increase the number to worry you or cause distress, for example ‘A 4 foot man came into the building last night and stole the ouroboros diamond’ it says that he was 4 foot tall but maybe he was 3.44 foot or less. So then it would worry you.
This is my opinion, I liked reading everyone else’s opinion snd their reason to support it
-Buzzing_Grapefruit
I think the numbers on the news are quite important and I would put them on number 7 because if we didn't have numbers in the news we wouldn't know how important or not important things are. For example, If we didn't have numbers in the news, we wouldn't know how much we would need to take caution for Covid- 19.
I think the numbers aren't important because to me it actually really confuses me a lot because I don't really understand them and I don't know why u need them any ways and it tends to look worse and I portent than they actually are which can scare people that might people think thatits impotent like really impotent and think that the world isn't vevvy nice as they thought to me its just so confusing I really don't understand them a lot I put the number 1 because some people do not understand what the coffustion and the depth about it and also numbers in the news I think they should not even put numbers in the news because it can be coffusing and people might be worried about it or maybe think they won't read it bacause they don't understand the depth of the conversation.
By loyal_piano injoy!!
I would give it a 10 because I think it's really important we know the Numbers in the News when it comes to this Virus because it helps us become become more careful and it also gives us more knowledge. Plus without the numbers we wouldn't know how many people have died from Covid-19 and might not even know what Tier we are in because the do give us numbers for that when the tell us why we're moving into another Tier of lockdown.
By extraordinary_redcurrant
eager_reflection here,
I think numbers in the news are very important for understanding the news and I would put them at number 9 on the scale. I think this because numbers in the news can make the news less vague. Numbers in the news give you a perspective of the situation. If you look at this fact, 'Approximately 90% of all media news is negative,' you can tell that people look for negative news, otherwise the media would lose out on readers. The number (90%) is more precise than words like 'a lot' or 'majority.' Numbers in the news are important, particularly in a pandemic, because it gives us the current situation of the infection rate, vaccination numbers, the deaths, hospitalisations, what type of variants, and many others. All this data helps the Prime Minister and scientific advisors judge when to do certain things, like when lockdown rules are eased. Every day, we are surrounded by numbers, so it is crucial in our lives. On the other hand, numbers can make people confused or could misunderstand the data. People may see numbers as a bad thing, and if there is percentage, may think that anything below half is not good.
Thank you for reading.
I believe that numbers are very important for understanding the news. I have put them at number 10 on the scale. This is because with this piece of information, they give us a clearer image of the situation. For example, if there were to be an earthquake the news would likely tell us the magnitude (how big it was). This shows it gives us greater understanding because if it was a larger earthquake, we would picture the damage it could've made. Furthermore, it means we can make educated guesses on the severity of the issue.
comfortable_chemistry
On a scale of 1-10, I think that the importance of numbers in the news is 8. I think this because using numbers in the news gives us a better understanding of what the news is portraying and it gives us specific facts. Dates are numbers and they are used quite frequently in the news and the amount of people that are somewhere also uses numbers.