Math is hard

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In a few weeks I’ll be taking my GRE (in sunny Thailand!) and I’ve been cramming to get ready. In high school I cheated, begged and faked my way through math class, and so I never really learned any of it. And lord knows I haven’t used a bit of it since (take that, “you’ll need this one day” teachers.)

My practice tests in verbal are almost perfect, but math is showing abysmal scores. I’m kind of looking at some nice schools. They just plain aren’t going to let me in with the scores I’ve been getting.

I thought I could do it, now that I am motivated. I mean, high school math should be pretty easy to learn now that I have a good reason and am away from the other pressures of high schools. I figured that with a clear mind, clear motives, and some good books I’d be able to at least get an acceptable score.

No. I’m sitting here in my room, just about in tears over the algebra chapter. I just plain don’t get it. I do the work. I fill up pages with numbers. It all seems to make sense as I am doing it. Well, sometimes I go around in circles, cross-multiplying and factoring until I’m not sure where I came from or where I am going. But most I manage to come up with an answer, and it seems right. I think I used the right logic, the right steps. Alas, my answer is never their answer.

And every problem it’s a different wrong turn. It’s not like there is one thing that is stumping me. I just can’t take a problem and know when I am supposed to factor or use formulas or what. I THINK I know, but I clearly I don’t.

Out of 15 problems today, I got 5 right. 5. Oddly, they were all in the advanced section. But still, 1/3. I’d be lucky to get into community college.

Why can’t I do this? Why is basic math, that any educated person could probably pick up in a few minutes, basically impossible for me? I feel like an idiot. And I’m worried about how this is going to affect my future. And my head hurts every day from trying to study this stuff. Ugh.

Math is still hard.

2

You shouldn’t need much algebra for the GRE or any type of calculus or higher for that matter. Get your hands on as many practice tests as possible. There are probably some that are web based but there are lots of books that have simulated tests as well. Don’t try to relearn all of high school math because you don’t need to for the GRE. It is just a fairly small number of types of problems that they present in different ways. I have taken it twice myself over the years. I am much stronger in the verbal section myself as well but just practicing things like basic geometry problems over and over brought me up to a decent math score.

There are a lot of people in your position. That is why GRE math is easier than SAT math.

3

Take heart, sven, what you are doing by getting things wrong is learning maths - there is no short cut, especially in algebra.

I’m not sure how it is in the US, but in the UK I see many 16 year-olds have problems moving things either side of an “=” sign. Take Ohm’s Law, for example: V=IR. Now, to manipulate this you could work ‘automatically’, using a rule like “divide both sides of the equation by the same quantity”. However, such ‘rules’ don’t give you an intuitive understanding of the relationship. If the question was “For a constant resistance ®, what would happen to the current (I) if the voltage (V) increased?” you would have to start thinking about which quantities grow when another grows, and which shrink. (Personally, I used to visualise a pie cut into three, with two of the portions growing while the other shrank, the total size of the pie remaining constant.)

If you only have the final answers to aim for, you’ll probably struggle. If you can get some past papers in which all the steps of the fully worked answer is provided, not just the final conclusion, these will be much more helpful. There really are only a handful of ‘tricks’ you’re likely to encounter at high school level, and recognising which ‘trick’ goes with which question is unfortunately a trial-and-error process which just requires lots of practise.

Good luck!

4

Just in case it’s relevant:

I had more than one maths teacher warn us against trying to UNDERSTAND the maths.

“Maths is about DOING, not UNDERSTANDING” they said. At least, for what we were using it which was not pure or advanced maths.

The idea is to grind through example after example until the method becomes instinctive.

Actual understanding, if it comes at all, is for the mathematicians and maybe the smart-arses. Or maybe for years later.

So IMO mate don’t fret about not “getting” it, you just have to rack up hours and hours of grind.

You’re not an idiot!

And good luck !

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Incidentally, this thread is a tonic to the views espoused by those philosophers who have been trained in maths and formal logic since kindergarten that humans’ ability to “track truth” via logic and maths was an essential part of our evolution. Formal mathematics is hard, and the vast majority of humans who ever lived couldn’t do it. It required a tiny minority of humans to somehow co-opt their cognitive modules (which evolved for other reasons) into cranking out formally correct symbolic logic from mere shapes on a page, and then getting humans thereafter to comandeer their modules in a similar way via intensive training from childhood.

Maths is, in many ways, a language which writes itself based on a few principles. But it is a very difficult language to learn compared to the ease with which humans learn spoken language, recognise faces or detect cheats as intuitively as walking on two legs. When I see a philosopher say “We evolved to do maths”, I wonder why the vast majoity of evolved apes didn’t do much maths at all.

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even sven, I don’t disagree with the advice above but you need to listen to me, here. It’s rather simple.

You can take the GRE more than once.

Just go ahead and take the damn thing. If you do bad, you’ll know why and how, and can do better the next time. Next time being a couple of weeks, or as soon as you can find somebody that will proctor it.

Colleges are only going to look at the top one, so keep taking it till you get it right.

Don’t be afraid of the damn thing, just try.

7

even sven, you could type up some of your answers (and how you obtained them), and I’m sure many of the mathematically minded dopers will be able to point out where you went wrong.

But first, are you certain that you are getting the wrong answers? Are you making sure you simplify all fractions fully etc.?

8

You know, Barbie got into a ton of trouble for saying precisely this.

9

Don’t listen to that guy, he’s just bitter because Barbie said a Ken Doll had a larger package than he did.

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Math is one of those subjects that always feel fucking impossible until you get to the actual exam and find that somehow you’ve learned a lot more than you thought you did. Just keep plugging at it. Also, keep in mind that math tests aren’t usually graded just on the answer. If you do some stupid mistake on a page of calculations you can still get 4/5 or even full score if it was a simple parsing error for example.

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Not on the GRE.

If you’re decent at arithmetic then you should be able to “plug and chug” your way through the test. Picking answers, sticking them in the equations, and seeing which ones can be correct and which can’t.

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As a math tutor (and a holist, philosophically speaking), I couldn’t disagree more. I always provide the context for the concept; math isn’t a series of disconnected factoids, but is all about how concepts interrelate. And this is especially pertinent to a standardized test like the GRE/SAT/ACT, as often the key to the harder problems is to deduce how the concepts fit together-if you don’t find the connection you won’t be able to solve it (absent some alternate strategy, which I also teach).

13

That is an absolutely horrible idea. This conventional wisdom is the reason so many students get so confused in the class–they feel they have some idea of what to do, but every year they’re forced to go through a horrible meat grinder of memorization, for seemingly no particular reason. The term ‘math’ has lost all meaning, nowadays, and it’s because of idiotic efforts like this.

Look around for the theory, even sven. You might find that it comes easier that way. If you know why things work the way they do, it will be easier to figure out what step comes next, and where you went wrong if you did.

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What sort of programs are you applying for, and what sort of scores are you getting?

15

Did you look at the math guide the GRE website puts out? (Or, at least, did when I was taking it) I found that the simplest and most helpful review of all of the information - much better than in any of the GRE books.

Other than that, you have my sympathy. From beginning to end, the applying-to-grad-school process has to be one of the least fun things ever.

16

Would you say you are a visual learner? Are you an inductive reasoner? (meaning, you tend to see the answer first, and figure out the steps to get there afterwards?) I am extremely inductive and math problems come in two flavors for me: easy, and impossible. This whole “work it through step by step” is just not how I think - I see it as a whole or not at all. There were a lot of tears in my math schooling - a LOT. Ironically, I went to a special High School for the Maths & Sciences.

Don’t discount that you might be somewhat dyscalculic (like dyslexia but involving numbers, spatial relations, and sequencing). Some signs you might be include making seemingly basic arithmetic errors, while correctly applying the theory; orienting a map so it always points the way you are facing; trouble copying physical sequences like in an aerobics classes; problems telling left from right.

Most law students are positively phobic of math, and are sent into a panic by a legal problem that’s also mathy. (figuring out what is owed by a number of people who were all partially at-fault in an accident, for example). A lot of people, people who are very intelligent, find math difficult.

17

This is exactly why I fucking HATED math in high school and college. This is a bullshit cop-out excuse by jaded math teachers who lost their own understanding through years of not giving a fuck.

If this attitude was eradicated, and actual understanding was nurtured again, math comprehension and ability would shoot through the roof, I guarantee it.

18

Most schools offer remedial math classes, sometimes refresher classes. Not every student comes directly in after high school. You still have to pay big bucks, but it may help.

19

I wouldn’t doubt it at the least. It’s not uncommon for me to screw up just copying the numbers on to my paper. 6’s get turned into 9’s. +'s to -'s. Things get transposed and switched around. Simple addition gets screwed up.

As a child, I was told that I was screwing up because I didn’t care enough. I really caught a lot of shit because of it. But this time I do care. And I do double check. And I still keep making the same mistakes. Or rather, different similar mistakes. Like I can never do the same thing twice when it comes to math- even get the same two addition problems to have the same answer. It seems like no matter how much time, effort and care I put into it, I still screw up.

Oddly, I am AWESOME at spacial relations. Geometry was the only math class I could swing an A in. Though it is true, left and right are not intuitive to me. I’m very much a “see the big picture and spot connections” person. I’m not so much a “hone in on fine details” person.

I’ll keep plugging away. I’ve got half three weeks before the test. I’m doing a chapter of math a day, plus bi-weekly practice tests. I’ve got a couple of very good books- complete with “shows all the steps” answers, and plenty of practice tests. I’m honing my vocab in hopes that I can hit a perfect verbal score and make up for some of my weaknesses. Unfortunately, due to location complications this is my only chance to take the test before applications are due. I’m hoping to study International Development, so my scores shouldn’t be too crazy pivotal but they will still matter. I’m embarrassed to say what scores I’ve been getting, but I’ll say they are hundreds away from the average scores of the programs I’m applying to.

But man, I never thought a sheet of math problems I was voluntarily doing for a good reason and with a good attitude would make me cry as an adult. At least I know it wasn’t my bad attitude that caused my problems.

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