Speech for “Ratio”

Start by locating MathCAT's speech rule for MathML ratio expressions and compare how ASCII and Unicode ratio characters are rendered in whole-expression and navigation contexts. Update the wording so the construct identifies itself as a ratio while preserving the requested navigation behavior, then verify both example expressions and their navigation speech.

The legacy MathPlayer had a speech rule for the ratio construct when something like “3:2” is embedded in a MathML expression similar to the one below…

<math xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML'><mrow><mn>3</mn><mo>:</mo> <mn>2</mn> </mrow></math>

In MathPlayer, that expression is spoken as “the ratio of 3 to 2.” That audio rendering is consistent with various established guidelines for speaking mathematical expressions, such as the PARCC Mathematics Audio Guidelines, Smarter Balanced Mathematics Audio Guidelines, and the Guidelines for Accessible Assessments Project (GAAP) Mathematics Audio Guidelines (developed by Measured Progress and others). While they may all leave out the word “of” in their examples, all of these guidelines include the word “ratio” as an identifier of the construct being spoken.

However, MathCAT renders this expression as “3 is to 2” (or “3 to 2” in terse), leaving out the word “ratio” entirely. I am providing a recommendation here to add the word "ratio" to MathCAT’s speech rule for this construct, e.g., rendering the example above as either “the ratio of 3 to 2” or simply “the ratio 3 to 2” (which is what was suggested in the examples from the various guidelines I referenced).

As an interesting aside, I noticed that in the rare case that somebody were to substitute the Unicode ratio symbol (Unicode 2236) in place of the ASCII colon in the same expression...one still gets the same speech...and when navigating inside either of the expressions, both the ASCII colon and the Unicode character still gets “to” as the spoken. rendering This seems not so helpful, and I would have expected that the user hears “the ratio 3 to 2” when reading the whole expression all at once, and then after entering MathCAT navigation, when arrowing right the speech would rather say “colon” upon reaching the ASCII colon character, or “ratio” in the case of the Unicode 2236 character.