Martin wrote:
But it would help if more than 20% of primary school
teachers knew the answer to "what is one plus two time three".

My answer would be "do you mean one plus two-times-three, or one-plus-two
times three?"

Do I win an apple?

Are you the teacher?

Well, I seem to agree with the majority. :-P

Seriously, you can't claim only 20% 'got it right', as asking where the
brackets are is a perfectly reasonable (and imho, much more sensible
response than assuming there are none) question. Brackets are very hard to
hear in spoken questions. (I assume it was a spoken question - if it was
written it would be a slightly different matter)

I agree with you.

It wasn't me who made the claim. Whoever it was has been snipped.

Apologies, it was my over-zealous snipping, but I did think it was you.
Apparently (from another branch of the thread), it was Tom.
Congratulations, I've merged you with another poster. :-)