Anyone here GREAT at science but TERRIBLE at math?

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history_of_psychiatry
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24 Mar 2010, 9:13 pm

My whole life the sciences have always been natural for me but math has been difficult. What's weird though is that they say if you're good in one you are more than likely good at the other. It's not that I'm bad at calculating numbers, I just have trouble with all the formulas and multi step processing. This applies mostly to algebra. It seems like math has so many rules and exceptions to the rules. You're supposed to add here accept when you're supposed to subtract there. That is unless you're supposed to divide. This formula says to do THIS at all times. That is, except when you're supposed to do THAT. What algebra reminds me of is that one episode of "I Love Lucy" where Fred and Ricky are playing golf and Lucy and Ethyl want to play too. So Ricky and Fred make up all these fake and confusing rules that all contradict each other just to screw with Lucy and Ethyl. Anyone else here good at either math or science but lousy at the other??


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MudandStars
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24 Mar 2010, 9:17 pm

This isn't exactly the same thing, for me it was more about the concept rather than just a science/maths distinction. I was great at maths until I got to calculus and then it all fell apart. :( I think the approach and attitudes of the teacher do a lot to sculpt your educational success particularly in the last 2 yrs of high school.


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PunkyKat
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24 Mar 2010, 9:27 pm

I'm good at science but it dosen't matter because I am so bad at math. I had a very bad teacher who made fun of me for being so bad at math and would rub it in my face.



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24 Mar 2010, 9:57 pm

Equal marks when I did Biology and General Maths for my final year in high school - 84 for both as my final score. But I did very badly the previous year when I did Advanced Maths - started off alright, low 80's, then my scores kept going down until I got 28 in the final exam. I knew it was futile when I read "a to the power of negative infinity equals 1" in my textbook and started laughing hysterically.

Biology was piss easy however, especially considering I never bothered studying =P Not eveyone thought that though - around half my class on average tended to fail the tests.

tl;dr - good at biology and basic math =P



danmac
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24 Mar 2010, 9:59 pm

me to science I love math I'm good till algeabra. I would study and get it then test time I would lose everything and foil everything



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25 Mar 2010, 12:33 am

I suck at math. Get 50% for class tests. With enough practice after MONTHS I get 80 something if 'm lucky. For sciences - forgetful in biology, but if I try very hard I get 80 something. Chemistry is my best - 80 something too, and I needn't study very hard for it. In my country, many good students get 60 or 70 somthing for chem, so 80 is considered very good. I really don't understand why people don't understand chem. It's very logical and pretty straightforward. What sort of intelligence is chem btw? I never figured out.



Apera
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25 Mar 2010, 12:48 am

For the longest time, I was a B student in math. Eventually I realized that by studying enough of a certain kind of equation, like quadratics, I could understand "all" of the basic processes that could be applied. I aced 2 years of HS math. In college, though, you're expected to learn much faster, and I fell behind again. It's invaluable to have someone that knows you well enough to explain things in terms that YOU understand.


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Orwell
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25 Mar 2010, 3:06 am

You cannot come to a meaningful understanding of the sciences without a firm grasp of mathematics.

history_of_psychiatry wrote:
It seems like math has so many rules and exceptions to the rules.

Nonsense, there are no exceptions to the rules anywhere in mathematics. Your confusion can only be due to misunderstanding the material, which is understandable as many math teachers do a poor job of explaining.

Biology often has more exceptions than rules, though.


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Apple_in_my_Eye
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25 Mar 2010, 3:52 am

In some ways math is taught backwards -- ie the proofs in calculus seemed odd & senseless to me until I finally took Real Analysis much later. All the worry & fuss about continuity and such made sense after that.

Seems that way with a lot of science, too -- i.e. the model of electrons 'orbiting' the nucleus, the number per orbital, the shapes, the energy levels, and all that. It was very cool to eventually see how it all falls naturally out of the solutions of the Schrodinger equation (for the 'hydrogenic atom'). That it is really simple (but a lot of work). But at the beginning they don't tell you about that, or necessarily explain where those things come from, so it can seem arbitrary and weird.



OddDuckNash99
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25 Mar 2010, 10:55 am

That woud be me! :lol: I have NVLD, so math has always been a struggle for me, geometry/word problems/graphing/visual-spatial skills, in particular. I'm actually very good at algebra, because it's all rules. And luckily, the only math I'll ever need is algebra. I'm also very good at the type of statistics my field uses, but again, this is because it's mostly rules and algebra. I'm in calculus II now. All I understand is the portions that require algebra. But save for calculus-based physics, which I fail miserably at (ALL math- no concepts), I excel at science. For example, while I wasn't good with the math portion of chemistry, I was one of the best at understanding the principles of chemistry, and if you ask me, that's all that matters for my field. I'm good with the conceptual basis of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, too. I think those subjects are fascinating, but alas, advanced courses are almost 100% math based, so I never got to take them. I fixed that with quantum, though- I bought a really awesome, totally conceptually based book about quantum a couple of years ago.
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25 Mar 2010, 11:07 am

GREAT at Science HORRIBLE at math. I could tell you the major meteorological formulae but basic math kills. me.



Descartes
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25 Mar 2010, 5:14 pm

I'm okay with some areas of math and science. I'm okay with basic algebra but start to struggle when it gets more advanced. My favorite science class I've ever taken was Biology, I was pretty good with that. I took Chemistry last year and I hated it. Biology was really interesting, though. :)


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ebec11
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26 Mar 2010, 4:41 pm

I'm the opposite, pretty good at math but I just can't do science. I can't get past an 72-73% in science, no matter how I try :P
At least I understand math, even if my marks last semester were poor for many reasons.



Dellingr
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27 Mar 2010, 5:16 am

Pretty good-great at sciences, especially bio and psych, good with graphics calculators but terrible at maths I have to do without the use of one :P


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Arch101
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30 Mar 2010, 12:03 pm

Whenever I take Physics, I always get 'A's on all the labs and have had instructors ask me to teach the class how to write up the labs. However, the labs are always only worth 10% of the final grade, the rest coming from the tests, which are all math equations. I have yet to pass Physics in several attempts even though I understand all the concepts and read a lot of science related materials as a hobby. The math component gets me every time.



MathGirl
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30 Mar 2010, 12:12 pm

I'm the exact opposite of you. For the life of me, I cannot grasp science. Math, on the other hand, makes perfect sense, and it doesn't take me long to understand the concepts behind it with practice. I don't take any sciences now, but in the past, no matter how much I've practiced for chemistry and physics, the concepts just would not stick in my mind. Biology is easier because it mostly involves rote, but I still didn't live up to my own expectations in that subject in terms of the grade.


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