Having decided to spend some time looking at one's understanding of numbers, the author was inspired by "Alex's Adventures in Numberland," by Alex Bellos to look at one's innate appreciation of number. Bellos quotes research studies suggesting that an individual's natural appreciation of numbers is more likely to be exponential rather than linear, and that increased formal education is what moves one towards a linear model. The author carries out an experiment with her IB students that replicated some of those quoted in Bellos's book. The results were in line with those quoted by Bellos: one does not appear to understand numbers on the basis of linear relationships. The conclusion that can be drawn from these results is that the understanding of numbers of this size does not fit with the linear model, but nor does it truly fit with an exponential one. (Contains 2 graphs.)