ok, so most of the world likes to say this.

but how good do you have to be to be good at maths?

like I get people in my work that can't do an equation to find 20% of a given number and answer "I was never good at maths." I mean come on, that's not even in the realm of good and bad, that's just fucking retarded.

is doing basic arthmetic really all you need to be good at maths?

what's yer maths level?

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If you ever feel useless and depressed, remember: one day you were the fastest spermatozoon of all.

I definitely fall into the 'fucking retarded' category when it comes to maths.

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um. i do a lot of maths at degree level. i don't know what that makes me. competent? expert?
some people's brains just reject maths. it doesn't amtter. they should spend their time doing things they enjoy instead

me too

I got totally lost after Calculus. I feel like a math retard. But omg give me sines and cosines and I'm so good to go. <3

Sometimes I feel like people say they are not good at something when they feel like it's too much work and don't enjoy the pay off...which is valid.

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"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," she told the crowd.

I got up to Calculus then I quit. Can't say I'm a math genius though. I have no recollection of what integrals and derivatives are.

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We're about to enter a whole other realm of music...we're talking Beethoven, Bob Marley, Men at Work territory

I'm really bad at it. I've failed it every year since my first year of high school, but instead of holding me back they promote me with a 65. I have a test tomorrow on trigonometry and i dont even know what that is. I really suck at math. I'm just horrible.

i second this.

i can do basic stuff, enough to get me through the daily hassles of life but more often than not i require a calculator. i swear i have a learning disability when it comes to this subject because i have always struggled with. i think i finished advanced algebra and jumped ship because i wasn't required to take anymore.

Well, I will say things like "I'm a bit thick at maths" but obviously I can work out things like..err, yeah, 20% of whatever given number! I say it because I have never been confident in my ability in maths - I remember even feeling that way in infant school - and I think it is very probable that that's because I'm a girl.

But then, yeah, you meet people who don't even seem to know their 'times tables' and people that can't even do simple subtractions without getting their phone (calculator) out and you think...

But THEN, most of the people I come across who are like that are females. You never hear boys saying things like "oof, I'm retarded at maths". I don't mean to sound like this terrible feminist conspiracy theorist but it's completely true that school subjects are gendered and maths is for BOYS. And although boys will rarely say things like "ooh, I'm so thick at English, me", it's much more of a girlie quality to be articulate, to have a wide vocabulary etc (and, of course, studies suggest boys are socialised into more boisterous, confident personalities: girls think they're bad at maths through their OWN fault, boys are unphased by a lack of flair in English cos they don't think it's a "proper" subject)

God, I might not like maths but I love sociology, me!

You'd have plenty of studies that back that up, lilybett.

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"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," she told the crowd.

hmm thats very interesting
i went to a girls only high school though, so that doesn't apply there so much. yr just good at what yr good at

I do not like math. I took a Logic course instead--after taking really low (not even college-level math classes). Taking any further math will do nothing for my degree or for my life. I did well in the courses I took, but I was really lost by the end of the second one.

i used to be really good at math up until i hit calculus. i can do calculus, but i rarely get A's in that subject. and as for anything beyond calculus, i'm completely gone.

ya, my situation seems to be the same as most....i thought i was good until i got to calculus. then i wanted to die.

i can do basics and know my algebra and stuff, but calculus was killer.

I got a B at GCSE maths, which is okay, but I'm shit at it. I can work out a percentage, but I couldn't work out a fraction that I couldn't easily trun into a pergentage. Basically, I'm shit. I have to work out my 40% discount at my last work with a calculator.

i'd say anyone that can do calculus has the right to call themselves "alright"

calculus is the sort of base level of studying maths.

poor maths, it gets a bad rep. I always thought they should teach a bit of the history of it at school. it's quite interesting if you learn about pythagoras murdering his student when he discovered that the root of two was an irrational number or Cardano, who was one of the weirdest people ever (convinced a woman he hardly knew to marry him because he saw her likeness in a dream) aswell as all the competition around certain discoveries. It can be interesting just schools are quite determined to suck the fun out of everything and maths is one area they have exceled in doing this.

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If you ever feel useless and depressed, remember: one day you were the fastest spermatozoon of all.

or ramunujan, I forgot about him. he fucking invented his own mathematical notation because he was practically self taught.

plus, I'd recommend A Mathematicians Apology by Hardy, it's short and really interesting essay about maths as an art.


ok, that's enough wankery shit that no one cares about for tonight.

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If you ever feel useless and depressed, remember: one day you were the fastest spermatozoon of all.

i can do algebra, but after that i'm pretty much lost. i have no desire to ever force myself into calculus.

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Today I was reading something off NPR about the geometric shapes in a lot of Islamic architecture...and its basis in math. It made me want to know math. I do feel rather defficient for not having a high aptitutude in this subject. A lot of it is pre-disposition, of course, but the other half is definitely work, encouragement, and the ability of teachers to teach it. Like someone said, it isn't integral to my degree...or my life as a whole...so it's much harder to get motivated to work on my skills.

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"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," she told the crowd.