How weak are you at maths?

Jev/N

It was pretty much my best subject in school for test/exam purposes etc. but use it rarely now, so have forgotten most of it.

Generally took me awhile to get my head around topics but once I did, it was grand. As a subject, it more about understanding rather than rote-learning

TeddyTedson

howsyourtusk wrote: »

There's a lot of people on here confused about the difference between mathematics and artihmetic...

Yup was just going to post that myself :cool:

I have a friend who is awful at maths but is absolutely unbelievable with arithmetic.

I was quite good (that's bull**** actually, a bit above average I'd say really) at Maths, it's just that I've now forgotten it all:P

policarp

TeddyTedson wrote: »

I was quite good (that's bull**** actually, a bit above average I'd say really) at Maths, it's just that I've now forgotten it all:P

So, to sum it all up, mathematics causes amnesia. . .

CrazyRabbit

I'm good enough to know that i isn't real.

But I haven't a clue what F(s) = ℒ{f (t)} is.

CrazyRabbit

howsyourtusk wrote: »

There's a lot of people on here confused about the difference between mathematics and artihmetic...

+1

Ficheall

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

I'm good enough to know that i isn't real.

But I haven't a clue what F(s) = ℒ{f (t)} is.

http://www.rapidtables.com/math/calculus/laplace_transform.htm

Davidius

Good enough for people who are not good at maths to think of me as a genius.

I am quite slow at mental arithmetic so I avoid being asked to calculate things in order to keep people believing I'm a genius.

ToddyDoody

Not great really. Probability and Statistics are my main concerns. Better than i used to be, but once a formula or problem gets too complicated i'm fecked. Also if its an area i havent dealt with before i'm particularly fecked

Captain Graphite

I have a BSc in Mathematical Science and Physics. I'm going to be doing an MSc in Mathematical Medicine & Biology in September. So on paper my maths skills should be fairly good. Yet I still feel like I'm crap at it.

I did enjoy studying mathematics at college but it always took a lot longer for the material to sink into my head than it did for others in my course. I never had a natural aptitude for maths and I was always better with letters and words. Yet I never really liked English as a subject in school, despite being really good at it, and I really enjoyed maths, despite being pretty average at it. Go figure.

Oh and I'm rubbish at mental arithmetic.

Napper Hawkins

I have a BS in Astrophysics.

OneArt

Disgustingly awful. I got diagnosed with discalculia as well. Now the only maths I do is calculating my taxes. With a calculator.

ilovesleep

I liked maths in school. I came second in the class in a maths quiz in second year in secondary school. Unfortunately I went downhill in third year with a change of maths teacher and turned rubbish. I couldn't understand a lot in maths and found it very difficult. A change in maths teacher for repeating the leaving cert and I improved at maths, not greatly but I improved.

I liked maths and working out the problems until I came to the right answer. Just this week I thought some sort of a maths course would be cool but will probably just make do with suduko instead.

sunflower27

I hated maths in school. It was by far my worst subject. I was really good at English and history, but I could never master maths.

I remember in exams just writing sin = cos/tan to get a half mark for a 10-point question. I tried but it made no sense to me and still doesn't.

I had a tutor in the end and I think even he got fed up with me looking perplexed all the time.

I got 60% in my final maths exam, which brough down my average of my other subjects and I remember throwing all my maths notes in the bin after it. That was a truly momentous moment!

bleg

A1 in the leaving! Suck it dumb dumbs!

boobar

I get by.

44leto

A, B in honours maths in the days when it was possible to fail exams.

I always thought maths is wrongly thought, there is a beauty and creativity to maths, it really is a language expressing concepts and understanding. Its one of the most powerful reasoning tools we have, this machine is a mathematical machine, one of which we can never see the physical workings of, but understand them and manipulate them with maths and science. And science is expressed and progressed with maths.

Its safe to say maths is one of the most important ability of humans in this modern world, maths created it. I draw this analogy. In 1976 NASA launched 2 probes voyager 1 and 2 to liaise with 6 planets in our solar system and some of the moons. The calculations for the navigation of these crafts had to be so accurate that it was equivalent to firing a thread into the eye of a needle 25 miles away. To get the course they used mathematics from ancient Egypt to then. The mission went flawlessly and who could forget all those thrilling and amazing images.

Maths is beautiful and creative, it is art. It is also from where the written word evolved, the first records kept was about billing, accounting, quantities, in other words numbers and maths and then as these systems became more elaborate a written word evolved to accompany them. Maths is older then the written word.

Quazzie

Napper Hawkins wrote: »

I have a BS in Astrophysics.

Do ya want fries with that?

DB21

eyescreamcone wrote: »

There are 10 types of people in the world!




Those that understand the binary system ...







... And those that don't !!!

There are ten types of people in this world; Those that recognise trinary, and those that confuse it with binary.

cloud493

I'm so bad at maths, I failed in at leaving cert at foundation level.

snickerpuss

I have dyscalculia so pretty rubbish. I have trouble calling out a phone number in the right order never mind doing maths. Words are more my thing. Never stopped me in college but a pain sometimes in life!

Ishmael

Would say i am alright at maths. I can understand most of the mathematics in the engineering Journals i read. Some stuff still wrecks my head though.

I'm fairly bad at mental arithmetic though. I blame calculators, i was perfectly good at it when i was a child. I can't even add two 3 digit numbers without a good bit of concentration.

FanadMan

Was quite good at maths at school but give me a exam paper now and I wouldn't have a clue....

mawk

my arithmetic is only ok, but I can estimate like a mofo.

my maths in general is quite good, I've used calculus on things in real life out if idle curiosity, so I guess my understanding its slightly beyond rote memory.

but its very hard to remerber methods and formulae unless you are using them frequently. I can poop out laplace and Ztransforms for second order differentials, but just this week I tried to help someone with their homework and couldn't remember the chain rule or quotient rule off my head. frustrating

Wibbs

Ohmigod I'm sooooo bad at maths. I mean really bad.

Kohl

I did a degree in Physics with the O.U. and I have started a postgraduate maths course with them. I quite enjoy maths. But I didn't do that well in the Leaving Cert. I got a C3 at honours level. The Open University have a great way of teaching maths and make it accessible to all.

Great thread OP! I'll be following this one with interest.

44leto

Wibbs wrote: »

Ohmigod I'm sooooo bad at maths. I mean really bad.

LOL I wouldn't have thought that, you seem as nerdy as I am, well nerdy in an interesting way.

forfuxsake

y2 = x (x − ap)(x + bp)

with x representing my ability in maths.

Panrich

Always my best subject in school. Would have loved the opportunity to study pure maths in college but couldn't find a course at the time. Ironically my wife is doing a Maths degree at the moment with OU and it makes me realise that I'm too lazy to do it myself.

Managed a B1 at HL LC maths so would say I'm pretty good at Maths. Can do mental arithmetic very quickly too.

TeddyTedson

policarp wrote: »

So, to sum it all up, mathematics causes amnesia. . .

That's pretty much the jist of it alright

Teyla Emmagan

I passed 2 maths exams in the whole of secondary school. My inter and my leaving. And I did try, I just couldn't work out an equation to save my life. My really basic math is okay, but it stops there. And it really frustrates me, percentages and that throw up a complete mental blank at times. It honestly all stems back to this wagon of a teacher I had in primary. She made me feel so useless at maths, I just believed I was rubbish. And once I hit a problem, I would instantly panic and go blank. Still happens. Thankfully I am good at other things.

Does annoy me though.

looksee

Maths - off the bottom of the scale. Arithmatic - not too bad, I can add up a list of numbers fairly fast (though I do it my own way, not just adding one number to the next), I can figure how much change I am owed if I buy a few items. As a child I was required to be able to multiply £ s d in my head, (I can't even figure how to do it on paper now!) Nightmare, standing in class aged about 9, being asked what would I be charged if I bought three items at £1 17s 9d each...

Logical Fallacy

I'm pretty good at Maths. Not my strongest point but I wouldn't struggle with it either except for the complex end of differential equations and such...so I guess kind of middle of the road?

I am the Bryan Adams of Maths.

Vizzy

Bad Panda wrote: »

When I applied myself I was decent enough at maths, when I didn't, I was appalling.

I don't have a natural aptitude for it.

You were good at applied maths then ??

grand at it

stovelid

Average to poor.

LemonPledge

I'm terrible at maths! We had a desperate maths teacher for the leaving cert which didn't help the matter! Scraped a pass in ordinary maths!

DEFTLEFTHAND

I'm a man of the Arts, Maths and Physics or anything rationale like that is a foreign concept to me.

Fiona

Not great, did foundation maths for my leaving cert, oddly enough I have worked in finance for the last 11 years.

bleg

mrs crilly wrote: »

Not great, did foundation maths for my leaving cert, oddly enough I have worked in finance for the last 11 years.

Is that you Patrick Honohan?


Anyway, for me, Maths was like another language. When you want to be good at French, I mean really good, you have to start thinking in French, same with Maths, for me anyway.

Fiona

bleg wrote: »

Is that you Patrick Honohan?

Ehhhhh no!!!!

entropi

I can do mental arithmetic without a lot of trouble, but mathematics is proving too tough for me in college. We have a module to complete which is maths and statistics based, yet I suck at it, big time...and I'll be lucky if I pass it.

take everything

Very good.
I say that with 1000% certainty.
It's because i worked 110% at it in school.

take everything

bnt wrote: »

The Boards moderators must love Maths, since they installed a LaTeX system that lets us put formulas in posts, like this:
[latex]\displaystyle{\psi}_n(x) = \frac{2^{1/4}}{\sqrt{n!}} \, e^{-\pi x^2}He_n(2x\sqrt{\pi})[/latex]

Doesn't Devore have a degree in it from Trinity.
Apologies if this is untrue. :pac:

L.Jenkins

Samich wrote: »

I'm good I don't get how some people would be able to estimate in their heads, say, 20% of 180. 20% of 200 is 40 so gonna be less than 40. 30*5 = 150 so it's between 30 and 40, so roughly 35.

In some cases, there is a quick way of doing things in maths, which make it way simpler. Well, the basic stuff anyway.

20% of 180 => Divide by 10 and multiply by 2 = 36.

Want to multiply a number by 11. Eg 23 x 11 = 253. Very simple to do quickly. Add 2 and 3, then stick the result in between the 2 and 3, then you have your answer. Works for any 2 digit number multiplied by 11.

Adding 9 to a number, take the last 2 digits assuming there is more than one. Add one to the second last and take one from the last. Of course, if the second last is a 9 then you have to carry a one :P

http://listverse.com/2007/09/17/10-easy-arithmetic-tricks/

starlit

I was quiet poor-average at maths when I were younger but not and never was I weak at it. Just needed a bit of help with it. If I practised my sums enough on a regular basis then I became good at it in tests but if I didn't understand it or took time to get it right then I could fail or do badly in a test but practise made perfect, got there in the end.

I was often lazy to learn it for myself not knowing or understanding what I was doing no matter how logical I was trying to be when doing maths. Given the right push, direction and help I needed steered me in the right track. Only for that I don't think I be able to do maths at all. Thanks to Education I could actually leave secondary school with a good understanding of maths! Went to grinds too when preparing for the leaving which helped me greatly. Very grateful for that.

Sometimes I count backwards or say do my times tables backwards and have tricks of how to do fractions and halves and all that sort of thing and decimals and division, subtraction, addition and so on so have tricks of doing them to be sure I am doing them correctly.

I have ways to make sure I am correct though when doing maths and stuff now. I improved in my maths as I got older and by leaving cert I was above average at maths enough to pass the ordinary level maths leaving cert very well, wasn't expecting to do so well in it but I did and has kind of stuck with me since even when I went to college had to do a business maths/statistics module though hard at first to back into it I was grand after I got use to it again and when it all came back to me. I still had the algebra in the back of my head. Now I'd recognise it but would take time for me to remember that kind of maths though basic maths I am fine with though, though when it comes to counting change I get careless. Did accounting in college too but wouldn't been my best subject but did alright though once I understood and practised it often enough I improved and passed it.

I know basic maths as it is so that's enough for me for now!

Eurovisionmad

I do Honors Maths, Applied Maths and Physics so I love Maths

The_Thing

The angle of the dangle is equal to the throb of the knob.

--LOS--

I would say fairly good, I'd have to be, it goes hand in hand with what I study in college (physics and astronomy)

Fluffybums

Better than most high ranking bankers:o