I’m not sure, but to me at least halving 17 to get 8.5 is an almost completely intuitive process, whereas multiplying 17 by 5 seems to require an extra cogniti

I’m not sure, but to me at least halving 17 to get 8.5 is an almost completely intuitive process, whereas multiplying 17 by 5 seems to require an extra cognitive step to reduce it to shifting the decimal point and then halving (or vice versa). Never mind the extra step when presented by the problem of taking 17% of 50.