North American culture is somewhat similar too (in other aspects). For example, how you perform at your hockey/football/any sports tryouts at age 15 or 16 determines if you will have any sort of chance to make it to the big leagues. If you blow it then you are pretty much done!
Back on topic, I think a little bit of memorization and arithmetic skills are important for anyone. I am surprised that many people need to use a calculator for some of the simple day-to-day math problems (e.g. buying groceries, handling change, splitting a bill, tipping, etc.)
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