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[Scelly9]

A spam wave is starting.

Also, why do I cry when I'm watching cartoons. :<

Everyone cries at cartoons.

[Skyrunner]

The funny thing about math tests is that if you're pondering how to solve a problem, you've already lost. Even if you think of an answer, it lost you time to solve other problems. =/

[Tiruin]

Granted, you thought of the problem before solving it. Which is correct in its own right.

Many people rush off and tick an answer thinking it's right. Then it's actually wrong when you think about it.

Timed exams suck. :I :I

[SalmonGod]

Heh... I had an interesting relationship with math.  Up to like 8th grade, I was the top math ace in my class. 

In elementary school, all the other kids were memorizing tables and shit.  I simply understood what the different operations meant, and didn't need to.  I wasn't quite as quick as the others on the stuff that they had memorized, but they'd BSOD on anything that they hadn't, while I trodded right along missing nothing. 

When it came to algebra in 6th-8th grade, I barely paid attention in class and never did homework.  I still got passing grades by acing every test.  I'd go into them hardly knowing what we'd been covering and just figure stuff out as I was taking the test.  I didn't understand how anyone could have trouble with it.  It was just shuffling numbers back and forth according to a ruleset that made natural sense.  I didn't understand why we spent so many years meticulously picking apart every possible little variation when it was all the same basic stuff that didn't seem to take more than the slightest application of simple logic to understand thoroughly.  I scoffed at the busywork, especially having to show the entire process for every problem.  It felt like having to prove to someone that I know how to breath by explaining the process, instead of just doing it.

Then came geometry where they were like "Everything is based on memorizing formulas now", and I started flunking hard until I learned to take the subject seriously again.  All my hufflepuff memorizing everything understanding nothing classmates flew right past me.

[Tiruin]

Dear gods I can relate so much with your experience SalmonGod >__> All those nitpicking questions and doing it step by step by pretentious step.

But the basis is all on understanding the idea behind it. I'm feeling the same

"Everything is based on memorizing formulas now", and I started flunking hard until I learned to take the subject seriously again.  All my hufflepuff memorizing everything understanding nothing classmates flew right past me.

here in pre-med, partly. It's mostly all theoretical stuff for 2 or so years, and then board exams.

..Wherein getting exposed to what and how to apply what you read and poured your mind upon only comprises 10% of your time. :/ Cue those who memorize flying right past and when a tiny deviation in wording the questioning is posited, confusing comes.. Still, it's balanced in general but..ugh. That feeling. >_<

...And now I've awakened depression feelings. Shoo you. :I

On an unrelated note: Abstract thinker or Concrete thinker. I'm the former.

..And..erm, I liked Geometry. I hated Algebra..and Trigonometry..and Calculus. But I'm putting that on the teacher factor :/

[10ebbor10]

Then came geometry where they were like "Everything is based on memorizing formulas now", and I started flunking hard until I learned to take the subject seriously again.  All my hufflepuff memorizing everything understanding nothing classmates flew right past me.

I hated geometry, and all that related with it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I like Geometry, but hate Algebra. Not really sure why.

[Rose]

Being compared to Sheldon Cooper.

[Frumple]

The funny thing about math tests is that if you're pondering how to solve a problem, you've already lost. Even if you think of an answer, it lost you time to solve other problems. =/

Skip it, solve the other ones, come back!

I've done math tests backwards before. Started at last problem, worked way forward. Also started in middle! It really doesn't matter. Numbering order and test formatting is irrelevant. Most of the time. Sometimes multi-part problems where you have to solve something earlier to do it, but... whatever. Outlier.

... though in retrospect, I'd guess you'd already know that, as bugfuck crazy as your place seems to be about testing. They'd have to have actually taught decent test taking methodology at some point... right? Though... considering the extent stressing out over tests (Number one way to wreck your score. Stress does not, ever, in any situation, help you take a test.) seems to be emphasized, maybe not...

[Solifuge]

I think I'd have liked Algebra, and Mathematics in general, a lot better if I had a chance to learn more than just how to put numbers through a meat-grinder, without the underlying principals I'm supposed to be operating on ever being explained.

I like Geometry, but hate Algebra. Not really sure why.

I don't hate Algebra, but I certainly enjoyed Geometry more. I think it's because Geometry taught it's own underlying rules and methodology, whereas most of my Algebra courses have relied on just accepting the methodology without ever bothering to explain the underlying rules. My whole brain is built on understanding rules and extrapolating, but the "rules" I was uncovering on my own seemed to keep changing as Math got increasingly complex. It's a house built without a foundation. Though it's home enough, the walls are sinking into the mud, and now everything's all slanty.

Hmm... off to the Math Thread, to solicit self-study textbook suggestions, I think.

[SalmonGod]

That's how I felt about geometry.  They just stopped teaching the foundation and said "Memorize these formulas and do this with them.  You'll learn why a few years down the road."  I'm horrible at anything that relies too much on memorization.  I don't have a horrible memory, but anything I try to memorize needs to be locked into some network of principles or it just floats away.

[Skyrunner]

The funny thing about math tests is that if you're pondering how to solve a problem, you've already lost. Even if you think of an answer, it lost you time to solve other problems. =/

Skip it, solve the other ones, come back!

I've done math tests backwards before. Started at last problem, worked way forward. Also started in middle! It really doesn't matter. Numbering order and test formatting is irrelevant. Most of the time. Sometimes multi-part problems where you have to solve something earlier to do it, but... whatever. Outlier.

... though in retrospect, I'd guess you'd already know that, as bugfuck crazy as your place seems to be about testing. They'd have to have actually taught decent test taking methodology at some point... right? Though... considering the extent stressing out over tests (Number one way to wreck your score. Stress does not, ever, in any situation, help you take a test.) seems to be emphasized, maybe not...

You don't really have time to come back :c
26 difficult questions in 45 minutes is really time-strapped. You either got it or you didn't. >_>

[Shakerag]

I don't hate Algebra, but I certainly enjoyed Geometry more. I think it's because Geometry taught it's own underlying rules and methodology, whereas most of my Algebra courses have relied on just accepting the methodology without ever bothering to explain the underlying rules.

If I'm remembering correctly, and it's been a while, I think it was in my first calculus class that the stuff in algebra started to make more sense.  Of course, it wasn't until my third calculus course that the stuff in the first calculus class made sense either.

[Vector]

Yeah, I magically just "knew" pretty much all of high school math after a couple of semesters of college math (with no review of what we'd done in high school).  My intuition had muscled up to the point where I could derive all of it without thinking about it at all.  Previously. . . not so much.

Of course, this was after a year or so of having panic attacks every time I had to add any numbers larger than 1 together, because I wasn't sure that I could prove it worked.

[MadMalkavian]

I'm thinking that I might have to go back to college just to make friends or find people to socialize with because where I live, which while in the middle of fucking nowhere seems to have both a community college and state university, if you're my age your only avenues for socialization are college, university, bars, parties, houses of worship, and trading card game tournaments which cost hundreds of dollars of investment just to get started in. Going back to college just to make friends isn't a good reason to go to college so I'm kind of screwed.

in b4 comments about the trading card game tournaments here. People where I live take Magic: The Gathering seriously enough to spend entire paychecks on it. That's a little too hardcore for me.