[BE88] The Strategist

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Updates stopped for this blog. Last post 20 August 2013.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

I'm currently pissed off with Math, and I've been incessantly ranting about it on Twitter for the past few weeks. It's become so bad that I'm having second thoughts about doing Computer Science. But we'll talk about my doubts about Computer Science another time.

So, I've been weak at Math since Secondary 1 or 2 (I think it's 2). I've never really been able to understand what's going on in class, and my homework and tutorials usually end up with me going to the class with more than half the questions undone, because I have no idea how to do them. In Secondary 3 and 4, E-Math was a breeze for me, and thank God for that.

But for A-Math, I got consistent grades of C5 and C6, all the way till my preliminary examinations. A miracle happened during my O-levels and I got an A1, surpassing my other subjects which have consistently performed better than A-Math.

The same thing happened when I was in JC. This time, it wasn't a grade of 50-60%. I failed. I failed consistently. I failed my JC1 end of year, I failed my JC2 mid-year, and I scraped through my JC2 preliminary examination with 50+% score. I failed my common tests, and I still remember getting 0/15 for one of them. Again, a miracle happened during the A-levels, and I got an A, once again surpassing subjects that have been consistently getting better grades than Math.

So I've come up with a theory of why this happens. Basically, I go through my school years with no idea what I'm doing in Math. I happen to take Math tuition during my Secondary and JC days, so I go there weekly to do Math questions non-stop for 2 hours straight. This, on top with additional questions given by the school, gave me a chance to practice a lot. Questions slowly became familiar, and reading answers helped me understand what to do for each question.

See the bolded part? That's how I've been getting my A's for Math at the very end. I go into the exam hall knowing how to answer the question, not because I understand what I'm supposed to do. I've practiced so much that I know how to answer questions because they're familiar. It's like the question is: "Draw a rainbow", and I know that I have to draw it with the 7 colours in a particular order. But I have no idea why.

If you've been reading my blog regularly, I'm pretty sure you remember that I've always been bitching about Math since the beginning of time. But this time, I'm truly worried. I don't have enough questions to practice on, and even if I do, I don't have the answers to these questions. Even if I have enough questions to practice on, I don't have enough time to practice. I have 13 weeks to go through the workload equivalent to 1 year in JC, and examinations in university are 1 week right after the last topic has been taught. 1 week.

1 week. Even a dumbass can tell that that is not enough time for me to ace Math the way I've been doing it in Secondary and JC. I had 1-2 months after the last topic then.

I'm screwed.

Oh and there's one more thing: the Math that I'm learning now is totally different from the Math in Secondary school and JC. It's "axiomatic Math", compared to what the lecturers call "engineering Math" before university. Engineering Math can be practiced more easily than axiomatic Math. Also, there's a lot of questions that says "prove abc is blah blah".

I'm screwed.

I'll be happy with a pass, a.k.a C grade, a.k.a CAP of 2.0. I can go ace other non-math modules, though this will forever remain a scar upon my grade sheet.

posted @ 1:06 am
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