Maria, a journalist with school-aged children, is able to deal
with decimals in many situations by relating them to money. Maria
does not realise that she has a problem. Her interpretation of money
in terms of numbers of dollars and numbers of cents means that she
does not appreciate the underlying structure of decimals. She disregards
digits which lie outside her narrow field of vision; any digits
past two decimal places. Money thinking appears to be the same as
expert behaviour until long decimals are required.
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