Although I got B’s in elementary algebra and geometry, it was quite a struggle. I could solve most of the problems eventually, but it would take me a long time and I never really felt like I understood any of it. Until I took intermediate algebra from a fantastic teacher. Everything clicked together then, and I taught myself trigonometry and some calculus and eventually I got my degree in mathematics.
For us, it required either taking Algebra 2 and trig concurrently, or going to summer school. I did the former.
I was better at algebra (particularly algebra II) than I was in geometry, but I think the teachers I had made a difference. I’m a very visual, spatial person so geometry should have been easier for me, but my teacher focused so heavily on proofs that I struggled. I would have made more of an effort to do better at it if she hadn’t made it so damn boring.
The poll didn’t include trignometry, which is just one notch away from calculus–combining algebra with geometry. I was an excellent trig student.
I remember starting high school thinking I was lousy in math because my mother kinda implanted that thought in me for absolutely no good reason (I always did decently in math in middle school). So there was a little lag phase in ninth grade before I caught on to the fact that I wasn’t so bad at it after all. My SAT and GRE scores, and the fact that I do very well with statistics, bear this out.
Also, for all those teenagers reading this thread, there may be a time when YES, you will need algebra. I was just starting out my first real job and unexpectedly I had to actually solve a complicated equation (involving the Wiebull distribution). It was weird how I didn’t have to strain that hard to do it…kind of like riding a bicycle.
I was kinda up and down in both algebra and geometry. I’m sure my high school math teachers and college math professors would all have been stunned to find out that I eventually got a Ph.D. in math, assuming they could have still remembered who I was by then.
I was good at geometry and horrible with algebra. I’m now a software engineer.
lousy at math. terribly one-sided.
my sat scores certainly reflected that:
nationally-ranked upper 10th percentile in anything to do with the written word.
lower fifth in maths. :smack:
I was good at both, but I did have to work at it. My career was in the brokerage industry, margins analyst and stock loan.
Yip. It’s advanced math that I find difficult. I could be a math teacher, but not a mathematician. I’ll say that I found geometry more rewarding than algebra, though.
Edit: I took Calculus, too. I made the highest grade on the final test–the only student to get college credit. In class, though, I had the lowest grade, as I was getting disillusioned by the amount of work every single homework problem took.
Well, I got A’s in all HS (and college and grad school) math courses, but I found algebra slightly tedious, absolutely loved geometry, and was bored to tears in trig. I was pretty bored by calculus, but I knew I had found my profession when I took a course in modern algebra from an outstanding professor (who just retired, well past 80).
Interestingly, my brother got C’s and D’s in nearly all his HS courses (and graduated by the skin of his teeth), except he slipped once and got an A in geometry. Couldn’t help himself, he explained. Among other things he proved a theorem the teacher couldn’t (that a triangle with two equal length angle bisectors in isosceles).
Everything through Algebra and Geometry was a breeze. Trig was a bitch, because this was pre-calculator and my teacher was an idiot. I quit when I got to Calculus, because I could see that there was nothing I was going to do in life that would require it.
I didn’t start off well. I hated math from the very beginning, and never had a good foundation to build on. I somehow got thrown into Honors Algebra 1 my freshman year of high school, which did not go well.
Fast forward through various adventures, including dropping out of high school and returning. I was in my second junior year, taking Algebra 1 for the third time and Geometry for the second. I had the same teacher for both, and he was wonderful. Suddenly everything made sense. I turned out to be good at it. I was worried about taking Algebra 2 with out him the next year, but I was fine. Never got to take anything higher than that, though.
I was even good at calc, until college. Then I got smacked in the head with too much freedom. I treaded water for a couple of years, skipping class and making C’s, then dropped out…
ETA : FWIW, I enjoyed geometry much more than algebra, but did fine in each…
Joe
I did terribly in high school math class. Crappy Chicago Public School, crappy teachers, crappy classmates. Which is why I dropped out after freshman year, moved to California, took the GED at 15 and entered community college at 16, where I took all my real math (and other subjects) and did very well through Calculus.
Chicago Public Schools need to DIAF. But we have to keep those union hacks employed!
I was pretty good at Maths. Never really had to study, although I always messed up by making careless mistakes, rather than not understanding the math or not knowing what to do.
I went through the GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ system, so I don’t know how that translates into the US system. We did do Geometry, Algebra, all that funky stuff, so I guess they more or less translate.
I actually didn’t really do statistics, even though it was supposed to be part of my curriculum. I hated my maths teacher, and basically slept through all of her classes. Still got my ‘A’ at the GCE ‘A’ levels though.
Now a lawyer. Not knowing “much” math works out fine for me, because in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king! 
When people say “they were good in geometry”, you need to clarify this statement. I had classic geometry handed down directly from Mt. Olympus like a curse to man from the Greek gods themselves to peck out man’s brains (like Prometheus style). We never saw an equation (sorry, Pythagorus); it was ALL proofs. Ironically, I never learned about pi in geometry, either. I’m glad my teacher held steadfast to the Classics…I never learned a damn thing. Yeah, like those proofs proved anything! :rolleyes:
Aced all the other maths, however. Went to pre-Calc, but I regret not doubling-up for Calculus in high school.
P.S.: Teaching my daughter Algebra I, I now see why it seems so hard and confusing. You spend 6-8 years learning the rules of basic math. In Algebra, you’re blinded by so much going on, you can easily forget the basics once they hit you with “what you do to one side of the equation, you do to the other”. While this rule is true, kids forget under pressure when they’re dealing with just an expression OR an equation. For example, my daughter needed a common denominator on one side of the equals, so she tries to do it on BOTH sides of the equal sign. But, she simply forgot she’s trying to combine like terms, that’s all. Hence, some of math’s frustration revealed! You gotta keep your wits…that’s half the battle! (I was once the same way.)
I was awesome in high school math, beyond algebra and geometry. I was the kid the teacher would turn to when no one else knew the answer . . . and I *always *knew the answer. And of course my SAT score was 1600.
I went to college to become an architect. During orientation they gave all the freshman architecture students a test. There was a lot of math on the test, and physics and logic. They had been giving this test for about 90 years, and nobody had gotten a perfect score . . . until I did.
I actually wound up being an artist, and there’s a certain amount of geometry in my work.
I sucked at high school math, and struggled from algebra through calculus, fighting the entire way.
Oddly at college, I went all the way to partial differential equations and integral transforms in graduate school, and didn’t have nearly the same problems I did in high school.
For those of you (like Una, Stan, and Silvorange) who went from being bad at (and/or hating) math to being good at it, I’d love to know, if you can tell me, what made the difference. If it was the result of having a particularly good teacher, what did that teacher do that was so helpful? As a college math teacher, I want to know any secrets there might be for turning math-negative students into math-positive ones.