Quantitative literacy involves understanding the role of numbers in the world. It provides the ability to see below the surface and to demand enough information to get at the real issues. It enables individuals to analyze evidence, to read graphs, to understand logical arguments, to detect logical fallacies, to understand evidence, and to evaluate risks.
Quantitative literacy means knowing how to reason and how to think.
Problem solving must be both mathematically defensible and useful in the real world. It is an aggregation of skills, knowledge, beliefs, dispositions, habits of mind, communication capabilities, and problem solving skills that people need in order to engage effectively and autonomously in quantitative situations arising in life and work. Quantitative practices deal with numbers, uncertainty, errors in data, design of experiments, creation of models, validations, inferences, making tradeoffs, etc. It involves a tapestry of meaning provided by a warp of abstract patterns and a weft of context and story line. In quantitative reasoning, context provides meaning.