Rants, Raves, and Praise → Re: Your thoughts

For some, math is easy. For most of us, math isn't. Math has always been a struggle for me, but as I aged, I realized that the great thing about math is that there's only one right answer, but for many problems, there are multiple ways to get to the answer.

I don't know much about the GED, but I think there are classes to help you prepare for the GED. You need to take those classes so you can learn the material, and then you take the exam.

Learning how to complete the questions in the McGraw-Hill sample quiz will not help you -- you need to learn the fundamentals of math (an issue many students face).

I totally agree. The test that I linked here is a contemporary GED Practice test. I took it to see where my holes were so that I could find the appropriate material on KhanAcademy to watch the videos and do some practice on the site itself before taking the real test.

I learn best hands-on. Watch, do by myself, get corrected, do with help, repeat until I can do without the help step.

As for Long Division, It was all they taught me in Elementary School. Then is High school they had to screw it up by requiring we use shorthand which my brain could not understand and often lost track of quickly (I do have ADD, though it is better now than it was then, but like Rob said some brains just don't work like others).

@cowboyro: Thank You for the help in describing each of the questions. I have since found a few great methods in my own head on solving some of them, but they're far from perfect and I still generate errors, but half as many.

And I want to thank everyone here for their help. I do not wish anyone have to go through what I am, save to say I'm doing better thanks to member kindness here on dslreports.

Thanks Justin & Gang

Special Kudos to Endy!

I always had trouble with math where I could not see a practical use.

For example..

"Mrs. Falbo bought 9 adult tickets and 5 children’s tickets for the recital. The total she paid was $67. Mrs. Ustinov bought 7 adult tickets and paid $38.50. How much does each type of ticket cost?"

Who in the hell uses this? Why not just ask how much is an adult ticket and a child's ticket? I can think of a dozen ways to get this answer without math.

For most of the others I can find the answer but I almost always find it with an alternate method. 99% of the time my way is as fast as the correct way. The problem I had in school is that teachers didn't like my so if you didn't do it their way you often didn't get credit.

For example..

23+39=62 I see 20+30+12=62. I had several teachers in jr high and high school that didn't like this method and discouraged it. To me it's who the hell cares as long as I get the correct answer.

Since I was a business major in College, I only had to take the basic math courses: College Algebra, Business Statistics (2 courses), and Business Calculus.

And in nearly every class, I had a professor that would take points off on students who solved the problems, but not the way that the professor taught it. I always thought it was wrong, but whatever, not my place.