It may seem unbelievable, but
government employees in China during
the T'ang Dynasty (618-906 A.D.) had
to take tests roughly equivalent to our
present-day civil service examinations.
The standard test for the arithmetic
portion of the examination was
prepared by the great Chinese
Mathematician Hsia-Hou Yang. Here is
one of the questions.
Could you have
passed this part of the government
examination ?
"A farmer owned 18 k'o, 7 t'ow, 5 ho
of rough and unprocessed rice. [Note: A
k'o, approximately equal to one bushel,
was the equivalent of 10 t'ow or 100
ho.]
The farmer took his rice to the miller
to be exchanged for processed and
milled rice at the rate of 1 k'o, 6 t'ow of
processed rice for each 3 k'o of rough
rice.
How much processed rice did the
farmer receive?"
To simplify the computation, convert all units to ho.
The desired amount of rice = 1,875 / 300 x 160 = 1,000 ho, which is equivalent to 10 k'o.
You can set up a proportion:
1875 / x = 300 / 160
Solving for x, you get x = 1,000 ho.
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