Posted by alexandra_k on January 16, 2014, at 8:48:41
In reply to Re: maths, posted by alexandra_k on January 14, 2014, at 19:34:48
next Thursday. math and english. meant to be last year high school equivalency tests, apparently. i hope they don't make me write about a novel i've read, because i think the last one was probably something involving harry potter... i occasionally take a look at what the year 12 math is all about and it is... incomprehensible to me. seems that the procedural knowledge gets underway a few years further down the track than i am still... or maybe it is just that i dropped out a few years further down the track than i am still and that is why the later stuff seems so alien to me. i'm sort of tempted to try and skip ahead to prepare. learn pythagoras theorum... practice some of that...
but i'm making great progress doing what i'm doing. i mean, really. and i don't want to jump ahead and risk upsetting the stuff that i'm still working on consolidating... i'm getting quite good at addition and even subtraction, now. a lot more accurate at grids of numbers - keeping track of borrowings and the like (can't write that stuff down on the computer and i try not to use paper). i'm actually learning my times tables... now i've got my finger situation properly sorted out and i can skip count in 3's and 4's and 5's easy peasy (from zero, anyway). i know my 10's - easy. and 5 is going to be half that. so there are my landmarks. then to figure out the ones i don't know yet (e.g., 8x7) i can navigate forwards or backwards on my fingers from my landmarks... i'm starting to 'see' answers... because the numbers actually mean something to me (those objects i did so much shuffling around of back in year 1).
this is awesome!!!
started on division and it is almost fun ha! i just know the answer. those times tables are actually starting to sink in!
i do worry a bit that things will qualitatively jump up significantly somewhere down the line... i don't see how you can get from where i am now, by a series of small increments, to where things end up... but still... i remind myself... most people are not heaps heaps heaps smarter than me and most people manage it. so it can't be that hard, really. get there, i will. it is just a matter of when.
i'm glad they gave me a test date. i was worried they would overlook me since i have a degree already...
i am a little concerned that they will tell me that my math isn't good enough for their remedial math for science program :(
maybe it will help if i can give them some evidence i managed to knock out the primary curriculum in a couple weeks?
?
i expect progress will slow considerably when it comes to procedures etc to be learned. for now... i'm not really learning procedures. just solving a bunch of problems. some of them are... just priming, really. showing you how to look at things. training you to do it their way, i guess. i'm not sure that i can keep this up, though, or whether some point down the track i'll need to spend a lot of time looking at websites to state procedures then i'll need to learn the procedures... time will tell, i guess. if you get one wrong... they have a good explanation on what you need to do, sometimes. e.g., i didn't know 'congruent' means 'same size and same shape' and 'similar' meant 'same shape not same size'. till you mess it up. then it tells you. maybe this will be enough... i don't think those allegedly 4 sided shapes with their sides crossed over are legit. they upset me. i don't think they should get to have 4 sides :(
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20140102/msgs/1058651.html