I are math dumb
I'm actually not. At least, not usually. Yesterday, however, I seemed hell-bent on proving my own stupidity. I'm currently taking Math 1010 in college, Intermediate Algebra for those playing the home game. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, factoring, etc. polynomials. That's what we've covered so far, anyway. Well, most of this has been a refresher and review so far, as this is about how far I got in highschool, but that was years ago, so I'm retaking it. I've done fine, good scores on tests and quizzes. The next test was coming up, and I studied Saturday night, and again Monday morning, for it. I felt pretty confident going in. Then I sit down, get the test, and start. Everythings great so far. Then I see this factoring problem. Only two terms, pretty simple. I'd just done a problem exactly like it Saturday. For those that care, it was something like 16p^3 + 54, IIRC. I saw this, and thought
"Oh, it's just one of those, I can... wait... how do I do those again?"
I was drawing a total blank. I stared at the problem as the minutes ticked by, trying to force the knowledge back to the surface through sheer will. Nothing. Then the same thing happened on another problem. I could not for my life remember how to go about solving them.
The worst was yet to come, however. I eventually gave up and went through the rest of the test. Then I came to a word problem where we had to set up and equation from, and solve it by factoring. Again, IIRC, it read
'Find two consecutive numbers such that their sum is 55 less than their product.'
Simple stuff. I set it up and worked through it, but I wasn't getting the right answer. I mean, you could tell the answer just looking at it, if you thought about it, but we had to go through the equation for full points and I just could not get this thing to come out right. I gnawed mentally at it for the remainder of the allotted time, and when the call came to turn them in, I brought it up and asked the teacher to show me where I went wrong.
I put the -55 on the wrong side of the equation...
Serioulsy. I did that.
That has got to be the worst I've ever done on a math test in my life.
"Oh, it's just one of those, I can... wait... how do I do those again?"
I was drawing a total blank. I stared at the problem as the minutes ticked by, trying to force the knowledge back to the surface through sheer will. Nothing. Then the same thing happened on another problem. I could not for my life remember how to go about solving them.
The worst was yet to come, however. I eventually gave up and went through the rest of the test. Then I came to a word problem where we had to set up and equation from, and solve it by factoring. Again, IIRC, it read
'Find two consecutive numbers such that their sum is 55 less than their product.'
Simple stuff. I set it up and worked through it, but I wasn't getting the right answer. I mean, you could tell the answer just looking at it, if you thought about it, but we had to go through the equation for full points and I just could not get this thing to come out right. I gnawed mentally at it for the remainder of the allotted time, and when the call came to turn them in, I brought it up and asked the teacher to show me where I went wrong.
I put the -55 on the wrong side of the equation...
Serioulsy. I did that.
That has got to be the worst I've ever done on a math test in my life.
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