Reform Math? No wonder America is behind.....

[Mise]

I still can't do number 4...

 

[Xenocrates]

I think you will if you have confidence that the question can be answered. Once you realise that you can use 7, 77, or 777, it's easier.

 

[Phlegmak]

I still can't do number 4...

It's the question mark operator, right?

(DISCLAIMER: Yes, I'm being silly.)

 

[Mise]

I think you will if you have confidence that the question can be answered. Once you realise that you can use 7, 77, or 777, it's easier.

It's the question mark operator, right?

Ahh, I get it now

77 ?(7-7)

(DISCLAIMER: Yes, I'm being silly.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark_function

 

[Xenocrates]

Close but no cigar!

77 ?(7-7)

on my screen (can you see a question mark here or a / (slash) here?

But even if its a slash (/) still no cigar.

 

[Mise]

Close but no cigar!

on my screen (can you see a question mark here or a / (slash) here?

But even if its a slash (/) still no cigar.

It's a question mark

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/267073_math18.html

What is wrong with America today? Its bad enough we pass kids on to the next grade even when they fail but now you don't need to learn basic math. I can't fathom how people can say its to hard so lets make it easier. If its to hard teach them better. This pure and simply is disgusting. I personaly suck at math but the most important thing about math is getting the friggin' answer right. America is becoming a lazy stupid nation because of PC crap like "failing students will hurt thier esteam" or what ever the loons can come up with. Its alot like the people that whine about having to pass a test to graduate high school. Insteead of making sure the kids know what they are suposed to they cry foul and state that the tests are raceist. Am I out of line being this frothy at the bit over this?

Funny how there's no talk of English spelling reform, which is badly needed, and yet math, which has been taught largely the same for thousands of years, with no trouble being passed from generation to generation, gets attention.

 

[sanabas]

I personaly suck at math but the most important thing about math is getting the friggin' answer right.

What's the point of getting the answer right if you don't know how you've got it? Understanding what you're actually doing, doing all the steps properly, and finishing with the wrong answer due to a single arithmetic error halfway through is much more impressive than getting the right answer with no actual understanding of how you've arrived at it. The first way can be repeated, and applied to new problems of a similar type. The second doesn't help you solve any other problem.

 

[Kyriakos]

I dont get how this math exercise is so different; it just seems to be a simple exerise in using basic math concepts. (edit: and that it isnt based in problem/theory relation, as has been said, is a disadvantage)
Here one learns of newtonian maths at the time of ending highschool, so it is a different story (i am not really claiming that it is better; it is part of the bad connection between high-school and university). Naturally only those who continue using high math in their future studies/work remember what they studied in highschool, so it is mostly a waste.

 

[Syterion]

I think it's absolutely necessary to see where formulas come from. I don't know how they are teaching math that encourages kids to derive formulas themselves; as far as I can remember elementary school was multiplication, division, addition and subtraction, and maybe exponents. There were no formulas needed. This type of teaching seems far more beneficial in geometry, trigonometry, and calculus, when one may be confused why a certain theorem or formula worked.

 

[malclave]

(77 - 7)/7 ? A couple minutes? I'm not even good at math, but I saw it in about 5 seconds...

Yeah. I didn't notice at first that it specified "digits", I was thinking I had to use the number 7 four times.

 

[History_Buff]

You're an engineer - the kind of math you use everyday is applied math. You're given a formula, you plug numbers in, and you get an answer.

I agree that applied math is important - but pure math is even more important - the students should be taught not only HOW to solve math problems, but also WHY things are done the way that they are - and why the formulas that they're given work.

I wouldn't recommend that a math class be taught exclusively with reform math principles - but I do think that they'd help.

Well, I've taken Physics classes, which was applied math mostly. I've taken Calc classes, which was essentially praticing our Calc. But I've also taken Discrete Math, and a number of Pure Math classes. I've also taken classes where all you had to do was punch numbers into equations. That class was dumb; the final exam was just like a calculator race.

 

[pboily]

What's the point of getting the answer right if you don't know how you've got it? Understanding what you're actually doing, doing all the steps properly, and finishing with the wrong answer due to a single arithmetic error halfway through is much more impressive than getting the right answer with no actual understanding of how you've arrived at it. The first way can be repeated, and applied to new problems of a similar type. The second doesn't help you solve any other problem.

hear, hear!

I don't mind a reform, if only because the current quality of math that students possess is abyssimally deficient.

How much worse can the new math be?

 

[Xenocrates]

The UK has similar problems:

A-Level standards are falling.
Modular A-Levels are easier to pass
Examination papers are less demanding
As an A-Level teacher of some 16 years experience, I have to give a resounding Yes to each and every one of these hypotheses.

This site contains examples from 'A level' papers taken at age 18 from 1971 to 1996:

http://www.mathsnet.net/articles/article_alevel.html

Despite having taken the A level in 1998 (I got 100% on the pure paper )
I can't remember enough now to do the earlier papers. I can still breeze through the '91 and '96 papers though.....

What about you? Is anyone studying maths at age 18 able to tell us oldies whether the later papers are easier or not?

 

[sanabas]

Despite having taken the A level in 1998 (I got 100% on the pure paper )
I can't remember enough now to do the earlier papers. I can still breeze through the '91 and '96 papers though.....

What about you? Is anyone studying maths at age 18 able to tell us oldies whether the later papers are easier or not?

I really hope that the way those questions have changed is a result of the papers being set with the easy questions first, and the harder questions last, on recent papers. 71 & 76 questions aren't difficult, but require some actual thought. 81 & 86 require remainder theorem, which I think gets introduced when you learn division of polynomials, in about yr 11. 91 & 96 questions are ones that I would give to a yr 8 student and expect them to get right. The 91 paper doesn't even bother making the student think about how they can simplify things, it simply tells them what to do.

 

[Xenocrates]

I really hope that the way those questions have changed is a result of the papers being set with the easy questions first, and the harder questions last, on recent papers.

Sadly not, the modern papers are all easier all the way through.

I'd say that making the curriculum easier was actually making the cleverer students bored and therefore fail and the less intelligent student pass.

 

[History_Buff]

I think the papers got easier as the years advanced. The question for 1996 I could do in about 30 seconds. And the 1991 question pretty much tells you exactly how to do it. 1976 doesn't look too hard either. The 1981 one I couldn't do, just because I've never done a question like that, and it's been a long time since I did polynomial division. I don't even understand the 1971 question, but that might have more to do with wording.

And is this Highschool Math? Because I certainly didn't do set theory in Highschool, and did very little Calculus, and even that was optional for most kids, I took it because I needed it for Uni.

 

[Truronian]

Current A-level furthur Maths student here

The 1971 question would today be in Furthur Maths module 1, so yes, the questions are getting easier (Question 1996 looks like GCSE stuff to me)

 

[Bluemofia]

Oh the stupidity...

My parents actually laughed when one of their friends said that their kids are comming over to America to learn math and science.

And now it's getting worse.

 

[puglover]

I can't fathom how people can say its to hard so lets make it easier.

Human teachers have a knack for this. Pretty sad.