Poll of the Day > High School Math is too difficult :(

(+) Yeah! (+)

I miraculously passed the middle school math exam (which was absolutely nothing like the practice exam btw)

Too not feel like I got lucky, Im trying to see if I can pass the high school math exam and holy shit these topics are things I repressed for good reason (trigonometry, unit circles, law of sine/cosine etc)

Would like to know if anyone has any advice for learning this. Maybe all of us were meant to be math teachers in the first place :(
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mastermix3000 posted...

I miraculously passed the middle school math exam (which was absolutely nothing like the practice exam btw)

Too not feel like I got lucky, Im trying to see if I can pass the high school math exam and holy shit these topics are things I repressed for good reason (trigonometry, unit circles, law of sine/cosine etc)

Would like to know if anyone has any advice for learning this. Maybe all of us were meant to be math teachers in the first place :(

or English teachers
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what program are you using to study?

I'm a science teacher and have been studying (off and on) to take the high school math exam. It hasn't been too bad, but teaching science has kept my math skills somewhat sharp
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I'm a senior year electrical engineering student, could you give some examples of what you're struggling with?
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green dragon posted...

what program are you using to study?

I'm a science teacher and have been studying (off and on) to take the high school math exam. It hasn't been too bad, but teaching science has kept my math skills somewhat sharp

My program is the high school math MTEL practice exam

Sources will be free trig and geometry textbooks. Those are my weaknesses and have been for years

shadowsword87 posted...

I'm a senior year electrical engineering student, could you give some examples of what you're struggling with?

Ratter than memorizing the unit circle, trying to understand it so I can determine points on the circle whenever asked a question

Also Geometry proofs. Later it will be graphing trig functions.
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Give me a mathematical proof that 1 + 1 = 2.

None of those "apples" bullshit either.

TheWorstPoster posted...

Give me a mathematical proof that 1 + 1 = 2.

None of those "apples" bullshit either.

get a job
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Have you tried Khan Academy? They definitely have lessons and practice problems for all of these.
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Nah, I am Asian.
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You learn by doing. It's and endurance challenge of grinding through problems, referencing back and forth through the theorems and example, checking the back of the book for answers, wondering why the fuck it's not working out the goddamn answer is right there!, reworking from scratch. Then finally maybe or maybe not it clicks. You get the right answer, but how the fuck did you get there. Self doubt, self reflection.

Eventually your brain paves a street with all this hard work and wether it's easy to drive or not depends on the effort you put in and leads to and helps you get further places.

Kinda like Pixar's cars.

TheWorstPoster posted...

Give me a mathematical proof that 1 + 1 = 2.

None of those "apples" bullshit either.

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mastermix3000 posted...

Ratter than memorizing the unit circle, trying to understand it so I can determine points on the circle whenever asked a question

Also Geometry proofs. Later it will be graphing trig functions.

Quick question before I give you my super lazy solution, are you allowed a calculator on tests/exams?
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shadowsword87 posted...

mastermix3000 posted...

Ratter than memorizing the unit circle, trying to understand it so I can determine points on the circle whenever asked a question

Also Geometry proofs. Later it will be graphing trig functions.

Quick question before I give you my super lazy solution, are you allowed a calculator on tests/exams?

Yessir
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Not sure what the syllabus is like in your area/country/etc but for me I got through maths by practice and more practice. You get to a point where there's no surprise questions anymore and it becomes second nature.

Work out what your weakness is whether it's core arithmetic ability, ability to remember formulas/methods, or ability to apply, etc...

For me I realised my weakness was remembering formulas and proofs hence why the practice repeatedly method worked. It helped I was strong at core arithmetic ability so I could always derive things manually and come up wth new solutions to problems hence I was better at competitions (I represented our school in olympiad) than actual maths exams.

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The kind of math that kicked my ass was called Complex Analysis. But yeah, I wouldn't say that high school math is "easy".

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Math they teach you is pointless, the the easiest classes you can..
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ferko420 posted...

Math they teach you is pointless, the the easiest classes you can..

What the fuck are you trying to say

I never got to high school math. or even junior high. i was diagnosed with a math disability as a child and I never really progressed past about 3rd grade math. the highest stuff I can do is multiplication but with big numbers I need a calculator and I never really fully grasped division. even though I understand it's just the opposite of multiplication but it just bombards my brain when I attempt it. anything past that stuff is like a foreign language to me

Zikten posted...

I never got to high school math. or even junior high. i was diagnosed with a math disability as a child and I never really progressed past about 3rd grade math. the highest stuff I can do is multiplication but with big numbers I need a calculator and I never really fully grasped division. even though I understand it's just the opposite of multiplication but it just bombards my brain when I attempt it. anything past that stuff is like a foreign language to me

Time for your first math question. No cheating:

Find the integral of f(x)=54x^3 -7x+9 on [4, 8]

I wouldn;t even know how to cheat that question. I don't even know what it's asking. that's how bad I am

Zikten posted...

I wouldn;t even know how to cheat that question. I don't even know what it's asking. that's how bad I am

In that case, I can show you a proof that will blow your mind

You gotta believe in yourself! Math is built upon itself. You need a good foundation of basics to do higher levels of math! And the best way to get good at it is to practice!
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SpeedDemon20 posted...

You gotta believe in yourself! Math is built upon itself. You need a good foundation of basics to do higher levels of math! And the best way to get good at it is to practice!

What is there to practice? There are thousands, if not millions of numbers out there, and a good chunk of them are imaginary. Some of them aren't even numbers at all, but letters.

All mathemagicians pull numbers out of their asses and get paid a lot.

TheWorstPoster posted...

Zikten posted...

I wouldn;t even know how to cheat that question. I don't even know what it's asking. that's how bad I am

In that case, I can show you a proof that will blow your mind

Division by zero on line #5.
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mastermix3000 posted...

shadowsword87 posted...

mastermix3000 posted...

Ratter than memorizing the unit circle, trying to understand it so I can determine points on the circle whenever asked a question

Also Geometry proofs. Later it will be graphing trig functions.

Quick question before I give you my super lazy solution, are you allowed a calculator on tests/exams?

Yessir

All right cool. My quick tip for bullshitting through trig functions:
Teachers will basically always only give you degrees in sin and cos in units of 45 and 30 (so 30, 45, 60, 90, and so on). Now, you throw that into your calculator, and you get more or less three different results, 1/2, sqrt(3)/2, or sqrt(2)/2. Use that.
When you get sin(45) throw that into your calculator, and you get something that looks like .707 whatever garbage that your teacher isn't happy dealing with. So, then you say put sqrt(3)/2 in the calculator, and you get .866 whatever. So that's not it. Then put in sqrt(2)/2, and it's .707 whatever.
There you go, you say sin(45) = sqrt(2)/2, and then move on in your problem.
It takes a bit longer, but you have to memorize less stuff.

Figure out what the degrees look like in a circle (as in, what 135 degrees look like), throw some negative numbers around, and call it a day.

Proofs, there's no easy way of making those easy. Just think "why is this true", and do some math. Normally it's 80% setup, and 20% being creative.
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@shadowsword87

Thats basically how I passed pre calc in high school but that wont fly especially if someone is teaching trig lol

Teachers need to understand everything and I have trouble understanding the basics enough to teach it well

Heres a link to the practice exam before it updates to a newer version

***it is a download link fyi

https://www.mtel.nesinc.com/content/Docs/MA_FLD009_PRACTICE_TEST.pdf
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Iirc, you don't have to memorize the whole unit circle. There's a pattern to it, and you really only have to memorize three things.

I can't really think of the pattern at the moment lol, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to remember every single thing

Law of sines/cosines is something you just have to remember.

I think my test for math cert gives you the law of sines and cosines
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