Random Fail: First World Problems

[BaneTheBrawler]

The reason I don't like multiple choice testing is because it isn't actually so cut and dried as "you know it or you don't." The kids who know how to take tests - and in this day in age, that's like 95% of them - know how to eliminate possible incorrect answers and reduce their chance of getting the incorrect one. That doesn't tell me that they know the material, it tells me that they know how to take tests and make educated guesses. This is especially the case when I see dozens of students falling for the "close" answer over and over again - it tells me the students don't know the material at all, they've just hedged their bets with a guess. It's not an accurate gauge of what they've learned.

don't knock the power of the educated guess, yo. ill grant it's not a great tool for estimating their progress, but as far as life skills go, it's pretty important. being able to whittle away possible answers, narrow things down, etc. rather than just having no clue where to start. sure, it's good to know the answer from the start, but you can't do that for everything.

generalist vs specialist, creating well-rounded individuals, etc.

[Astylla]

This whole takata airbag recall is a fucking mess right now. Our dealership has so much affluent business on top of the regular our management can't decide what direction to go with getting people into replacement vehicles to drive.

While the conditions are unlikely to happen in California , the letter outlining telling people they might die isn't helping. I'll be amazed if our dealership survives after Acura pays out for everyone affected to drive an enterprise vehicle for as long as it takes to get the parts in. I think every other call right now is about this.

Blargh.

[Blubbartron]

If the test says "show your work" or if the syllabus says "show your work" or if the teacher says "show your work" then it is entirely okay to not give credit just for a right answer. All we have is Nynja saying he was repeatedly marked off for not showing work. Personally, I've never met a math teacher who says "you don't need to show your work".

Your math education continues to boggle my mind. You literally cannot do the vast majority of calculus problems without incorporating algebra. You can't even TEST some concepts without a page of algebra. Like, I know you think you're a genius but come the fuck on, you must realize how stupid that statement is.

Your justification for being a pretentious douche also continues to boggle the mind. Please think back to the calc 2 homework you did in college. The overwhelming majority of problems you did for homework, assuming you used the same textbook that's used literally everywhere, were small enough that you could fit half a dozen problems on one side of a page. The concepts and tools taught in calculus 1/2 are not so complex that they require a full page of algebra in order to use. The amount of algebra required is directly related to how big of a douche you choose to be when creating the equations that need solved.

[NynJa]

If the test says "show your work" or if the syllabus says "show your work" or if the teacher says "show your work" then it is entirely okay to not give credit just for a right answer. All we have is Nynja saying he was repeatedly marked off for not showing work. Personally, I've never met a math teacher who says "you don't need to show your work".

Your math education continues to boggle my mind. You literally cannot do the vast majority of calculus problems without incorporating algebra. You can't even TEST some concepts without a page of algebra. Like, I know you think you're a genius but come the fuck on, you must realize how stupid that statement is.

Once again, you're referring to math that is this:

I just googled long math problem and that came up...I'm not sure if thats one question or multiples, dont really care.


We are (or atleast I am) referring to high school (and we've mentioned high school multiple times so far) math of shit like:
5x + 3 = 18, solve for x

If a student opts to just write 3 as their answer, thats their own business. No teacher should tell a student that they have to show their work on something like that and penalize them because they didnt write down:
5x +3 -3 = 18 -3
5x = 15
5 x 3 = 15
x = 3

Some brighter students can just visualize simple stuff like that, and some simpletons need everything written down for it to make sense.

[dasva]

The chances that you "simplified an over complicated method or equation" in a way that wasn't intended as a step in the problem is incredibly low, barring being taught by a Burger King employee.

Reduction and simplification are often important steps in actually approaching and solving a problem. Yes, most people who aren't brain dead can do all of algebra 2 in their head, but the point in being strict about showing work is that eventually you will hit a point in life where there is a problem you cant solve in your head. This is where knowing how to methodically write down a problem and break it up into pieces of stuff you know how to do, stuff you dont know how to do, and stuff you can figure out using other considerations.

Do some teachers grade lazily and mark down for not being able to follow work? Yeah. Does it, very rarely, negatively impact someone who actually understands what is going on? Sure. But if they can't follow your reasoning or your methodology, that means your work is ONLY useful to you. Personally, I used to write all over the page and my work followed no logical order. If I didn't have that hammered out of me it would definitely be hurting me now. As is sometimes I go back to reference previous work and notes and cannot even understand my own shit.

It's analogous to turning in work to your boss that only you can understand. Do you expect him to take more time out of his life to figure out what the hell you're on about or do you expect to get told to go back and do it the way they told you to or get the fuck out?

It wasn't and you greatly overestimate some teachers. Like I said they couldn't even understand it or how I got there. Even when I showed her. Honestly I think she was taught just like she was trying to teach. Rote memorization of steps.

I think you are missing what I was saying. I'm not saying I skipped a bunch of steps in this case or did stuff in my head. I'm saying we were handed unnecessarily complicated equations that literally had things that already canceled out way before you got to plugging anything in to solve it. And your idea sounds great until you realize out of her 4 classes there was only one person besides me who had any real clue what was going on probably because she made things added completely extraneous steps and work. Seriously 7 steps to convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius. In fucking honors/IB chem. I couldn't even figure out how to make it take that many let alone what purpose it would serve. In case you are wondering part of how it got that long is you couldn't multiply/divide by 9/5 you had to do 9 then 5 <.<. You had to put in what exactly you were doing ie multiplying both sides by 9 and then write the result of that before writing the next one.

And it's not that my work wasn't understandable I just got a lot of teachers that never tried. I know this because I often did more of the teaching in these classes then the teachers and often watched people including myself get credit for complete gibberish "work". Not to mention the teachers that actually taught how things worked instead of just memorize these steps usually understood and award credit. Funny that.

It sounds like your whole argument is based on a bunch of assumptions that arise from a radically different school/teacher experience.... I guess it should be noted I didn't have this problem when I lived in Washington. But in California public schools (JC was completely different and laughed at me when I described what my schools did) or at least the districts around here things were way different. Here the overriding philosophy seemed of form over substance. The actual content of your work or answer mattered little as long as there was enough of it there in the right places. I definitely completely B.S. my way thru some stuff that I knew didn't even make sense to me let alone anyone else but as long as I carried on for sufficient length I got a decent amount of credit

To branch out past math related fields we were taught all essays had a specific form they had to follow. Like each sentence of your concluding and introductory paragraphs had to follow a very specific criteria. You had to have exactly 3 body paragraphs. Each body paragraph followed the Jane Schaffer method and had to be exactly "Topic sentence, Concrete Detail, Commentary, Commentary, Concrete Detail, Commentary, Commentary, Concrete Detail, Commentary, Commentary, Concluding sentence" Any slight deviation from this form in any class that assigned essays (except my world history since it was taught by an English major who hated this. Not really sure how she got away with it sense it was district policy) resulted in anywhere from those parts not counting to just getting failed for not following the form. Meanwhile the contents could be a complete joke (like me and a friend literally wrote joke essays with completely ludicrous premises) as long as you followed the form and your spelling/grammar wasn't atrocious you'd do well. Your points could make no sense. Your quotes/concrete details could in fact not actually support your commentary. Your concluding paragraph could include "in conclusion there is no conclusion. If you want to know what I think I just wrote an essay. Read it" but if fit the form it worked and you could get 100% on that essay. Granted that guy was actually a really good writer but still

[BerenTebogo]

Once again, you're referring to math that is this:

I just googled long math problem and that came up...I'm not sure if thats one question or multiples, dont really care.


We are (or atleast I am) referring to high school (and we've mentioned high school multiple times so far) math of shit like:
5x + 3 = 18, solve for x

If a student opts to just write 3 as their answer, thats their own business. No teacher should tell a student that they have to show their work on something like that and penalize them because they didnt write down:
5x +3 -3 = 18 -3
5x = 15
5 x 3 = 15
x = 3

Some brighter students can just visualize simple stuff like that, and some simpletons need everything written down for it to make sense.

I'm super glad you can solve a linear equation in your head. I'm only talking about high school algebra as well, actually.

High school algebra 2 problem (literally):

A sheet of metal 12 inches by 10 inches is to be used to make a open box. Squares of equal sides x are cut out of each corner then the sides are folded to make the box. Find the value of x that makes the volume maximum.

I patiently await how you would solve this, again, high school algebra problem, in your head.

[NynJa]

A sheet of metal 12 inches by 10 inches is to be used to make a open box. Squares of equal sides x are cut out of each corner then the sides are folded to make the box. Find the value of x that makes the volume maximum.

Your high school teacher should have done a better job in English class...or maybe you should have focused more on English instead of flaunting your math skills without the grammatical know-how to back it up.
"an open box"

The largest skill of any person tech or science is not the ability to do science or tech well but rather the ability to communicate why what you are doing is important to a bunch of average joes.

That is why you get essays in chem, bio, engineering, etc. Nobody is doing any R&D without funding and no matter how awesome your brand new innovation might be, if you can't convince the accountants, it isn't getting funded.

A+ would lol again, I believe it was?

[Aksannyi]

don't knock the power of the educated guess, yo. ill grant it's not a great tool for estimating their progress, but as far as life skills go, it's pretty important. being able to whittle away possible answers, narrow things down, etc. rather than just having no clue where to start. sure, it's good to know the answer from the start, but you can't do that for everything.

generalist vs specialist, creating well-rounded individuals, etc.

I realize that, but trust me, these kids are getting all the multiple choice testing practice they could ever want or need in their lives. They literally spend 30 days of the school year taking some sort of standardized multiple choice test. They do have state-mandated essay tests but not nearly as many. The testing culture these days is absolutely insane. All the more reason for me to discount multiple choice questions as viable in my classroom, because I already know that they have the skills required to pass that and it doesn't adequately tell me who needs more assistance. At least with writing I can see what they're thinking.

[BerenTebogo]

It wasn't and you greatly overestimate some teachers. Like I said they couldn't even understand it or how I got there. Even when I showed her. Honestly I think she was taught just like she was trying to teach. Rote memorization of steps.

I think you are missing what I was saying. I'm not saying I skipped a bunch of steps in this case or did stuff in my head. I'm saying we were handed unnecessarily complicated equations that literally had things that already canceled out way before you got to plugging anything in to solve it. And your idea sounds great until you realize out of her 4 classes there was only one person besides me who had any real clue what was going on probably because she made things added completely extraneous steps and work. Seriously 7 steps to convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius. In fucking honors/IB chem. I couldn't even figure out how to make it take that many let alone what purpose it would serve. In case you are wondering part of how it got that long is you couldn't multiply/divide by 9/5 you had to do 9 then 5 <.<

And it's not that my work wasn't understandable I just got a lot of teachers that never tried. I know this because I often did more of the teaching in these classes then the teachers and often watched people including myself get credit for complete gibberish "work". Not to mention the teachers that actually taught how things worked instead of just memorize these steps usually understood and award credit. Funny that.

It sounds like your whole argument is based on a bunch of assumptions that arise from a radically different school/teacher experience.... I guess it should be noted I didn't have this problem when I lived in Washington. But in California public schools (JC was completely different and laughed at me when I described what my schools did) or at least the districts around here things were way different. Here the overriding philosophy seemed of form over substance. The actual content of your work or answer mattered little as long as there was enough of it there in the right places. I definitely completely B.S. my way thru some stuff that I knew didn't even make sense to me let alone anyone else but as long as I carried on for sufficient length I got a decent amount of credit

To branch out past math related fields we were taught all essays had a specific form they had to follow. Like each sentence of your concluding and introductory paragraphs had to follow a very specific criteria. You had to have exactly 3 body paragraphs. Each body paragraph followed the Jane Schaffer method and had to be exactly "Topic sentence, Concrete Detail, Commentary, Commentary, Concrete Detail, Commentary, Commentary, Concrete Detail, Commentary, Commentary, Concluding sentence" Any slight deviation from this form in any class that assigned essays (except my world history since it was taught by an English major who hated this. Not really sure how she got away with it sense it was district policy) resulted in anywhere from those parts not counting to just getting failed for not following the form. Meanwhile the contents could be a complete joke (like me and a friend literally wrote joke essays with completely ludicrous premises) as long as you followed the form and your spelling/grammar wasn't atrocious you'd do well. Your points could make no sense. Your quotes/concrete details could in fact not actually support your commentary. Your concluding paragraph could include "in conclusion there is no conclusion. If you want to know what I think I just wrote an essay. Read it" but if fit the form it worked and you could get 100% on that essay. Granted that guy was actually a really good writer but still

Yeah I guess I misunderstood your original post? It sounded like you were saying you were given some problems and you "found a simpler way to do them that wasn't intended" or something, which is generally bullshit outside of testing specific things (i.e. taking the derivative using limits).

It sounds like you had an unreasonably and very specifically bad experience. Don't get me wrong, I dropped out of high school with only Algebra 2 knowledge and I failed it cuz I continually pulled the shit Nynja is talking about "I'm smarter than you I can do it in my head" and I thought pretty much the same way he does "why do I have to follow the steps I'm smart blah blah blah". Turns out there is a good reason to hammer the fundamentals, no matter how stupid you think it is.

But yes, I concede that it sounds like you were just let down by the system. That doesn't mean the methodology is wrong, just that underpaying people who don't care / don't know how to teach isn't a great way to enforce the methodology.

[Blubbartron]

I'm super glad you can solve a linear equation in your head. I'm only talking about high school algebra as well, actually.

High school algebra 2 problem (literally):


I patiently await how you would solve this, again, high school algebra problem, in your head.

When did they start teaching derivatives in algebra 2?

[dasva]

I'm amazed no one has mentioned the obvious anti-cheating mechanism inherent in all problems that require showing work.

Google and Wolfram can answer anything about any math problem you could possibly ask at the high school level. Knowing a final answer doesn't tell me fuck-all about the student's understanding of the material or how well they'll be able to apply it in higher level courses, in the workforce, or on monitored exams. Fuck right off with that shit.

Tangential problem: Students can and will often get the right answer for all the wrong reasons, and no one will know how to correct the gap in their understanding (or even that said gap exists) without requiring the student to demonstrate and defend their process.

Not really you can fake the work too. In fact just to fuck with one of my math teachers I made programs on our graphing calcs that would also display all the steps/work and gave it away free.

I've also continued to "let" someone cheat off me after I noticed them looking at my paper one too many times. Both they had a fun time explaining how they got that 0% and the elaborate amount of work involved

[BerenTebogo]

Your high school teacher should have done a better job in English class...or maybe you should have focused more on English instead of flaunting your math skills without the grammatical know-how to back it up.
"an open box"



A+ would lol again, I believe it was?

I actually just copy and pasted the problem from a practice test for high school algebra, but the dodge to try to avoid admitting you don't even know how to do the problem on paper is pretty cute.

[Greatguardian]

When did they start teaching derivatives in algebra 2?

You don't need a derivative to solve the problem. It's significantly easier to solve with a derivative, but high school students do (theoretically) have all the tools necessary to find most extrema.

Edit: For the record, the answer is 3.621", which any teenager can find by plugging the equation for the volume with respect to the length of the cut into a graphing calculator and hitting "find maximum" within the given boundary conditions. High schoolers have graphing calculators for pretty much every assessment ever. What's actually being tested in that problem is their ability to take a physical scenario and synthesize an accurate mathematical model with which to find their answer (and, to a lesser degree, their ability to reason that cuts larger than 10" aren't physically possible even if the graph continues to +infinity after that point).

Edit2: At least, I assume that's what they're testing. I don't teach Algebra 2.

[Blubbartron]

You don't need a derivative to solve the problem. It's significantly easier to solve with a derivative, but high school students do (theoretically) have all the tools necessary to find most extrema.

Ah, yeah, gave it a google and it all came rushing back. Those were some of the most irritating problems in algebra 2. It's no wonder I only associate solving them with calculus. The algebra method is ridiculous in comparison.

[dasva]

But yes, I concede that it sounds like you were just let down by the system. That doesn't mean the methodology is wrong, just that underpaying people who don't care / don't know how to teach isn't a great way to enforce the methodology.

While this is part of it... I have to say it isn't just the teachers faults and some of them actually tried to fight the shenanigans. The problem is they shouldn't have had to fight to teach properly. But the district/school board would sometimes mandate this stuff making it a fight. Which gave you a mixture of teachers not wanting to risk their jobs or actually thinking this is how you teach which is fairly understandable. So generally only the ones who felt really secure and been teaching long really bucked the system. Don't worry though the school boards around here are a lot better now. Why just recently the invented a grading system that makes 50% a C and gives incomplete assignments 50%. Needless to say many a teachers are somewhat miffed but the administration is ecstatic that now no one will fail

[BerenTebogo]

You don't need a derivative to solve the problem. It's significantly easier to solve with a derivative, but high school students do (theoretically) have all the tools necessary to find most extrema.

Edit: For the record, the answer is 3.621", which any teenager can find by plugging the equation for the volume with respect to the length of the cut into a graphing calculator and hitting "find maximum" within the given boundary conditions. High schoolers have graphing calculators for pretty much every assessment ever. What's actually being tested in that problem is their ability to take a physical scenario and synthesize an accurate mathematical model with which to find their answer (and, to a lesser degree, their ability to reason that cuts larger than 10" aren't physically possible even if the graph continues to +infinity after that point).

Part of why these problems are great. And yeah, the derivative method is SUPER easy like Blubb said, and in high school doing this shit was SUUUUUUUUPER AIDS but it is a completely reasonable and realistic problem. Optimization is a hugely important skill that really isn't properly taught in a useful way until Calc 3 imo (Lagrangian multipliers) so having a basic intuition using only algebra and some common sense to get a rough answer is really important.

While this is part of it... I have to say it isn't just the teachers faults and some of them actually tried to fight the shenanigans. The problem is they shouldn't have had to fight to teach properly. But the district/school board would sometimes mandate this stuff making it a fight. Which gave you a mixture of teachers not wanting to risk their jobs or actually thinking this is how you teach which is fairly understandable. So generally only the ones who felt really secure and been teaching long really bucked the system. Don't worry though the school boards around here are a lot better now. Why just recently the invented a grading system that makes 50% a C and gives incomplete assignments 50%. Needless to say many a teachers are somewhat miffed but the administration is ecstatic that now no one will fail

Ksandra has posted at length about the CA public school system. I genuinely do not understand how CA continues to function.

[Jem]

I was continuously docked marks in school for not showing working out in Maths. And in hindsight I wholeheartedly admit it was because I was a lazy, arrogant dick who 100% deserved it.

[kuronosan]

If the test says "show your work" or if the syllabus says "show your work" or if the teacher says "show your work" then it is entirely okay to not give credit just for a right answer. All we have is Nynja saying he was repeatedly marked off for not showing work. Personally, I've never met a math teacher who says "you don't need to show your work".

Your math education continues to boggle my mind. You literally cannot do the vast majority of calculus problems without incorporating algebra. You can't even TEST some concepts without a page of algebra. Like, I know you think you're a genius but come the fuck on, you must realize how stupid that statement is.

Once again, this.

[Tokitoki]

Late to the party.

An "open box" is a box without a top. If you cut 4 squares of equal sizes out of a rectangular piece of whatever material you can't make a "lid" for it.

That is an open box.

A+ would lol again.

[Mertron]

let's just all agree that math is terrible