What statistics is like for someone who is horrible at math: Part Two. EDIT: RAGE QUIT · 11:38pm Sep 20th, 2014
Well, things did get a bit easier after that last journal I posted; it turns out that the reason I couldn't make heads or tails of any of the presented math problems is that the writing in our textbook is terrible. It's written in scholarly mathematical English incomprehensible to human beings, making even the simplest formula nearly impossible to figure out (imagine the question's writing style in the last post applying to a 400+ page book). For example:
I stared at this several times over the past ten minutes, and I had no idea what it was trying to tell me. It was only after I looked up the formula online, written in actual, everyday English, that I finally figured out what it was trying to say:
"To solve this step, add up all the numbers and divide the result by how many there are (for example, 12, 34, or 50)"
Nice, clean, and easy to understand, even for a mathematical illiterate like myself. Things are going great!
...but now there's a new problem: some of the formulas I've found appear to be inaccurate, as I keep getting wrong answers on my homework (and to make things worse, the software don't show what I did wrong, so I have no idea how to correct it). So now I have the delima of trying to understand the incomprehensible formulas in the book, or the simple to understand formulas online that may be wrong. Add in the fact that we're getting homework assignments consisting of 40+ questions twice a week until December (and each of those questions has 4 sub-questions to complete), and my stress levels have skyrocketed into the stratosphere; I feel like a two year old who's being forced to learn quantum mechanics without having learned English first.
For my readers, that means updates to "Monster Below 2" may be delayed. By how much, I can't say, as I still squeeze in a bit of writing here and there, and I have no plans of giving up. This foul cancer, however, demands my attention, and if I want to get the minimum grade needed to pass, I have to focus on it.
On a completely unrelated note, is it just me, or does the word "statistics" sound very similar to "sadistic"?
Edit: Are you kidding me?!
23 STEPS FOR. ONE. PROBLEM?!
ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME?!
2470597
Somehow I doubt it, amongst a group of elite mathematics students at my school (I ended up somewhere in the middle), statistics seemed to be liked the least. I have jokingly called the subject 'sadistics' in my head at times. Pure mathematics and mechanics were more popular. Oh, and without pure mathematics, you can't do the other branches properly either.
oh god that program is just the worst...