*Throws pen*

"Logansteno: Bought a VW?" (logansteno) 10/29/2014 at 14:24 • Filed to: None

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That's another failed math quiz. I had more blank then I had filled in.

Which means I'm most likely going to fail this class this semester. Awesome .

Wouldn't be the first time its happened. Failed second Algebra I second semester freshman year and had to take summer school. I'm just not good at math.

I'm so beyond done with school, it isn't even funny.

Mattbob > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:27

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what kind of math? There are a lot of engineers here if you need some pointers. srsly would be happy to help with some math in my spare time at work.

Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:29

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There is a lot of people that arent too good at math, those people just need to work a bit harder to get. Doing homework (Not sure if you do it) is a great way to find what you are not very comfortable with, then you can go to your teacher and discuss how you can do better with those. Also, https://www.khanacademy.org/ is a fantastic place for explanations for topics.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:30

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Anything needs specific help with? What math are you?

All Motor Is Best Motor > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:35

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Get a tutor. I know, I know, it sucks. I was in the same boat. I got a tutor. It helped.

Stupidru > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:37

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Don't fret man. Sometimes it's the teacher and their awful teaching styles. Seriously. Mechanical engineer here and I dropped a partial differential equations class because I was failing midway through the semester. Took it the next semester with a different prof and got a B...

I should also mention that the second time around I drastically changed my attitude towards school and actually gave a damn about studying

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/29/2014 at 14:37

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Algebra II.

To be honest, outside of the first quiz, I've hardly understood anything. Variables and me just don't get along.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > All Motor Is Best Motor 10/29/2014 at 14:39

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They offer free tutoring after school, I might start going.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Stupidru 10/29/2014 at 14:40

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The problem is I'm one of those kids who likes to figure shit out on my own and not ask questions. That's been a problem for me since kindergarten and it's not going to subside any time soon.

I'm sure the teachers boring teaching style and monotone voice don't help any either though.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Mattbob 10/29/2014 at 14:42

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I'm guessing what would be considered advanced algebra? I have no idea what to call what we're learning, and my brain's too fried right now to remember the names of certain things. I know one of the things I struggle at is factoring.

Stupidru > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:43

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I'm as stubborn as they come, but it came down to realizing that if I didn't get my shhh together, I'd be a bum without a degree but with the same student loan debt, making 1/2 as much.

ttyymmnn > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:44

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Please forgive me, but I'm going to put on my Oppo Dad hat for a minute and tell you a little story. First, some background.

My oldest son is in 6th grade. He's struggling with math, among other things. A lot of it has to do with his difficulty making the transition from elementary to middle school, with its attendant increase in work and responsibility. He'd rather sort his Pokemon cards and play Minecraft. Last week, he got particularly upset at his mom and me because we voiced our disappointment over a failed math quiz. He thought we were angry with him. Not at all; just deeply disappointed. And here's the story.

When I was in high school, I never worked very hard. (I also smoked lots of pot, but that's another story, though there may have been a significant correlation.) Some things came easy to me, but not math. Or science. Or even English, though now I'm a great lover of language and literature. So I was a solid C student, with a couple of failed classes to my name. But my parents never took an interest in my work. They never asked to see my homework. They never asked if I needed any help. It's not that they didn't care, it was more of an old-school approach to learning, where the parents were much more hands-off. So I wallowed through high school, and while I was a good musician, the only thing that caught my interest was surveying. I loved maps. I wanted to be a cartographer.

So I finished high school and applied to two universities in VA as a geography major, planning to become a cartographer. I didn't get accepted by either school. I had to go to the local university for two years, one of those schools where they'll pretty much accept you on the first day of classes, and took lots of general studies type stuff, dropping chemistry because I couldn't do it, still getting C's in algebra. So I decided to pursue a career in music because I thought it was the only thing I could do. And I've become a pretty good musician, though not with the career I would have hoped for. But that's another story.

I told my son that I wished my parents had taken more interest in my work, because I might be making maps today instead of playing trumpet. It's not that I dislike what I do, but I often wonder if I would have been more successful doing what I really wanted to do. My son wants to be a pilot. I told him that at 30,000 feet he probably won't need to analyze a paragraph or discuss the effects of Reconstruction, but if the math is wrong, the plane will crash. And I want to make sure he will get to do what he wants to do in life. So I will continue to harass him about his work because it's important.

All this is to say that even though something is hard, it still must be done, and done well. If you need to find some extra help, do it. If you need to spend more time getting better at it, do it. Don't throw the pen and give up. Your future may literally be depending on your doing well.

*takes off Oppo Dad hat*

Hang in there, and best of luck.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:45

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yea whats worse hangin with a tutor a couple times a week or retaking the class

MonkeePuzzle > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:45

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do it. felt dumb, but I was in exactly your boat, failing Alg 2. Tutor got me to A: understand it, B: pass it

Mattbob > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:46

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like the FOIL method and all that jazz? any examples of problems? do they usually give you problems that you don't have to resort to the quadratic equation? Throw out an example problem. In all honesty, I'm curious if I remember how to do that stuff off the top of my head.

All Motor Is Best Motor > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:46

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Do it. These are usually peer tutors (ex students) so if you find you're still confused/having difficulties despite trying your best, you may need to pay for a more professional tutor. Give it a go and see what happens.

Alex B > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:47

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Math is tough. I struggled with Algebra 1 at first, but with lots of practice (and help from my Dad, who is good at math) I got good at it. Does your school have tutoring available?

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 14:50

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The thing with the parents sounds very familiar. Though it's not that they're hands off, they just don't understand any of the stuff I need help with. My dad has a GED via the military, my mom was a B-C student who had about the same feelings about school as I do. Neither of them went to college. Neither of them can really help me because they never learned what I'm learning.

I mean, go figure the only subject I need help in is the one who's standards have drastically changed since the 80s.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Mattbob 10/29/2014 at 14:54

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Here's one out of our review packet for this test:

Show that x + 5 is a factor of f(x) = x^3 - 2x^2 - 23x + 60. Then factor f(x) completely.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > All Motor Is Best Motor 10/29/2014 at 14:55

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There's actually usually a couple teachers in there as well. I guess if I start struggling next unit, I'll go.

ttyymmnn > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:56

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Hell, I'm struggling with 6th grade math. It's only the very beginnings of algebra, but I've gone about as far as I remember with it. I'm going to be relearning it as he learns it.

If you parents can't help you, I'm sure there's somebody who can. After school tutoring? Hiring a tutor? A wicked smart friend who finds this stuff easy? There is also TONS of information, videos, tutorials on the Internet. My son had some ridiculous homework dealing with negative and positive integers, and I was only able to understand it when I found a video of some Swedish math teacher explaining it (in English). Hell, I used YouTube to show me how to fix my washer and dryer and how to clean the carburetor on my lawn mower. So there are resources out there. It's up to you to find them and use them. And that sounds kind of dad-ish again. Sorry. I can't help it.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Alex B 10/29/2014 at 14:56

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Yeah, if I start struggling next unit, I'll be going.

luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:57

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I second that. Some one-on-one can do wonders. Don't be afraid to ask "stupid" questions either.

I had a great calculus teacher that had a knack for detecting when he was loosing the class. He would stop and say, "OK, let's go back to grade-school." The he would go back over the thing in smaller steps, making sure we understood. Not all teachers have that knack, or the willingness.

Get the tutoring. Things will clear up fast for you.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 14:58

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My girlfriend offers to help me all the time. I just never accept because I'm a stubborn person who like to figure things out on my own. It's been a problem I've had since elementary school. It's really coming back to bite me in the ass lately though.

Ducky > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:59

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ah, factorization, yeah. the best thing to do with this sort of stuff is learn all the rules of algebra (what you can and can't do with variables and numbers) then just use your toolbox.

btw, the phrase for what you're doing here (to help you google) is factoring a cubic polynomial

SonorousSpeedJoe > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 14:59

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I feel your pain - seek help (tutoring, patrickJMT and similar YouTube channels, etc.) and hang in there.

I'm in college and am currently retaking Differential Equations because I barely missed the cutoff for a C. Some bad quiz results, blanking out (as you did) when doing the second of three midterm exams and scoring about a 50% on the final got me to that point.

Now, though, I'm in a much better position in my second attempt the course - I've been doing okay on the quizzes and have a better grasp of the course material after having reviewed most of it over the summer. My second midterm is tomorrow, and I'm determined to not blank out and score much higher than the 26/100 that I got before.

Again, you should get a tutor, find online resources, and do whatever you need to do to get a handle on the material that you're learning - I'm rooting for you.

luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 15:00

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I almost forgot, and this might work for you especially well if you like to work things out on your own, but go to khanacademy.org. Here's the link to the Algebra II section.

thebigbossyboss > luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! 10/29/2014 at 15:01

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My math tutorial is the opposite. Whiz kid does it and it is like "so then we do this, then I skipped 8 steps, now we are here"? And we all go.....wait what?

thebigbossyboss > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:04

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Bro: www.khanacademy.org

This site will help you. It's helped me learn a lot of math. And it's free. And it's online and it has practice problems.

ttyymmnn > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:06

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Sounds like you know exactly what the problem is, then. Only you can fix it. (There I go again.)

deekster_caddy > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:07

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There are actually some surprisingly good videos online to help make sense of this stuff.

Mattbob > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:09

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I have to go watch a youtube video. wow.

I haven't used this stuff in too long.

ttyymmnn > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:11

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The thing with the parents sounds very familiar.

The kicker? Both my parents were educators: my step-mom taught elementary music, and my father was a college professor. You'd think they would have been more hands-on with my education. I don't blame them, it was all me. But some pushing might have helped.

ttyymmnn > luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! 10/29/2014 at 15:12

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Did you mean to reply to Logansteno?

deekster_caddy > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:12

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Take the help. Figure it out now. Bust your ass and do it. I can tell you that as much as it may suck now and you don't want to do it, or you don't want to ask for help, it really REALLY sucks to do it 20 years later. I'm 42 and struggling to finish my B.S. Fortunately math was the thing I took reasonably well to and had my old college credits transferred towards my new degree program. My co-worker who is in pretty much the same boat is now fighting his way through finite mathematics (algebra 3 or 4?) and it sucks. Do it early and just get it done.

Another thing is that in the future it looks better on your resume that you finished your degree on time, versus taking 6 years to get a 4 year degree - they do know the difference.

thebigbossyboss > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:14

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Factoring a cubed (or beyond) function is a bit of an art but what you can do is think of it this way:

A factor is something you multiply by something else to get the result you want. so 2 is a factor of 6. But 5 is not a factor of 6. There is no whole number I can multiply 5 by to get 6.

Given this question...

YOU KNOW that (x+5) is a factor of x^3-2x^2-23x+60. The question tells you so. So take your x^3-2x^2-23x+60 and divide the whole thing by (x+5). Even if you don't know how to divide that (more on that in a minute) you know that you are removing one x and will then get a quadratic which is a lot easier to factor.

This website tells you how to make that division. Work this question and get back to me.

http://www.purplemath.com/modules/polydi…

thebigbossyboss > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis 10/29/2014 at 15:14

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If it wasn;t for Khan, I would have failed school already.

deekster_caddy > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 15:16

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We are going through similar things at home with my 5th grade daughter. She's convinced that she's going to be a pop star when she grows up... #*@$@*. I'm not saying she can't do it, but she needs a realistic fallback plan. Oh, and long division sucks. I remember when I was 10 or 11 and studying the stuff she is throwing pens about right now, I had a fit so bad I cracked my bedroom door. Literally a crack right down the entire door... This is back when they were actually made of solid wood. So I completely understand what she's going through and try not to get too upset when she gets frustrated with it.

luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 15:19

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Doh! Yep, I'm not sure what happened there.

ttyymmnn > deekster_caddy 10/29/2014 at 15:20

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My wife keeps telling me that our experiences are normal. I know she's right, but that doesn't make it any easier. My son basically wants us to do the work for him and tell him the answer. And when we don't, he gets angry. My wife is much more patient than I am. When he starts getting angry with me, I have to leave the room because then I get angry, and nothing will get accomplished. One night, when he was getting really nasty with his mom over the homework, I said, "She deserves your gratitude , not your attitude !" And he's not even a teenager yet. *heavy sigh*

luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 15:21

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I almost forgot, and this might work for you especially well if you like to work things out on your own, but go to khanacademy.org. Here's the link to the Algebra II section.

ttyymmnn > luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! 10/29/2014 at 15:21

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Though I could probably use the link myself when my son is at that point. Did you fix the reply? I want to make sure Logansteno gets it.

luvMeSome142 & some Lincoln! > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 15:25

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I fixed it. Thanks for the heads-up.

deekster_caddy > ttyymmnn 10/29/2014 at 15:55

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Yup. Sounds like me/my daughter. I have to walk away too at times.

Boxer_4 > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 16:17

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My dad has a saying that has always stuck with me: "The first step to getting out of a hole is to stop digging"

The material you are learning now isn't going to go away, and quite often is the foundation for later material, either in this class or future classes. If math isn't your strongest subject (it wasn't for me, either), the way to stop digging that hole is to get help before you are completely lost. That tactic has helped me the most in my math career, and now I'm doing fairly well in a 4 year engineering technology degree.

Bullitt Ride > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 16:55

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Ahhh this brings me back.... I had to sit and and try and remember how to do this stuff. If you set f(x)=0 you need to find a value for x that is a factor of 60 that will make the equation equal zero. So you start writing out the factors of 60. They are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and of course 60. Starting at 1 plug each value into the equation until you get the value which makes the equation equal zero. In this case you will find that x=3 gives you that. Therefore (x-3) is your first factor. Now long divide the equation by your factor and you'll get an answer of x^2+x-20 which can be factored down to (x+5)(x-4). Therefore your factored version of the equation is (x-3)(x-4)(x+5).

....good times.

Stay at it. You'll get it.

Denver Is Stuck In The 90s > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/29/2014 at 17:30

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have you considered applying for extra time on tests through an IEP or something of equivalence?