Because each of those is probably a homework problem in Stats 101, and every college kid is going to be googling for the answer to the variation from their edition of the textbook.

College kids have to search for the answer to what the probability of getting a 5 or higher in a die roll is?

Liberal arts kids doing the mandatory math classes? Sure.

CS major in first year who has been interested in math and science as a kid? Probably not.

First year college in the USA is very broad. It’s not like university in Europe / UK where you specialize in one subject only for your bachelors.

I went to college in the USA, and I understand that undergrads are often put into classes far outside of their expertise. Still, I expect college students to be able to count to 6 and understand fractions. Even the remedial algebra students I helped in high school weren't that bad.

There are still people that think that buying multiple lottery tickets actually lowers your chances of winning.

I tried to argue against someone with this. I even tried scaling the problem down to being two balls drawn from a pool of four, and showing how if you buy multiple tickets, your chances of winning greatly increased. And they accepted what I was saying, but just insisted that the math "doesn't scale" and it doesn't work the same when it's 5 balls drawn from a pool of 69.

Even worse, she tried to say something like "You're really good at math. You should know this!"

> There are still people that think that buying multiple lottery tickets actually lowers your chances of winning.

This blows my mind, but at least it means they aren't wasting even more money on the lottery.

That's really bizarre. I wonder where they got that idea. Why do you say "still"?

You’d be surprised.