Math has now ruined my life.

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I thought about that, but I have no way to gaurentee I'd get a high enough sat score. I need a 440 and I understand they have made it more difficult.

This is left field, but I am going to put it out there anyway. This is a major reason for a person to get a diagnosis. If you have a diagnosed learning disability, schools-including colleges-are required to make modifications including possibly extending time allowances and allowing the use of a calculator. I know this is not what you want to hear right now, but if math is THAT hard for you......

There is no way for me to get a diagnosis. I don't have insurance and everyone wants you to go see them for 6-12 months before they will do the testing.

Perhaps but the SAT you can take I think as many times as you want and its much cheaper than repeating college semesters to pass the same class.

Also, many colleges have their own tests for admission and those are split into math and english sections. you can just take the math one.

Yeah, thats the thing though, most colleges use the ACTLITE aka the COMPASS which is a computer based test and is what is causing all the problems.

the SAT is not cheap for adult learners either its about 65$ when I looked into taking it.

God, you really are in a bind. I wish I could try to tutor you. I had this math teacher when I was in school in Ohio that explained things perfectly clear, with no bullcrap. And that was how I turned from a bad math student to a good one...

I can't help you man... if I knew where you were at perhaps I could, but good luck

It's been taken care of thanks to the disability services department and a very strongly worded letter to the dean. But I appreciate the thought.

Seems I am not the only one..


http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625 ... 78489.html


Considering my recent experience with a very similar situation.. I really sympathize with this kid.

I just saw that before seeing your post.. I immediately thought of you man!

He's also in Georgia... how about you contact the news crew and see if they add your story to it? Maybe more like you and him will come forth and make it an issue the politicians and school boards get fire on their butts to address.

Way ahead of you!

Things like this are sooo agravating. My oldest son was diagnosed with autism when he was 3. I have spent the last 10 years battling school districts to give him what he needs and has the right to. I hope that this boys parents are fighting it. I tend to get so battle weary, but I find if I push them hard enough they eventually give me my way. If my son got a letter like that after struggling through 13 years of school, all that I can say is that it would not be pretty.

I can relate to you on not having insurance, becuase in the 20 years of my adult life, I have never been able to afford insurance. I did want to touch on the diagnosis thing. Whether or not you get diagnosed can be a big decision that everybody has to decide for themselves, but you should know the facts. Anybody that tells you that they have to see you for 6-12 months before they can make a diagnosis, I would say they don't know what they are talking about and are only after your money. It is important to go to an autism specialist for this. Lately I have been a little intrigued with the idea of getting a diagnosis. In part, because as I read posts on WP, I think that my autism is much more severe than I thought before joining WP. So last week I searched for psychologists that not only specializes in autism, but adult diagnosis. I am going to paste the response that I got to my email, because it is exactly what it should have been:

Thanks for your note and interest in pursuing an assessment through my office. An evaluation typically takes 3 sessions and involves taking a history, review of your current symptoms, administration of a few assessment tools, and sharing of results, followed by my writing up a detailed report that you can use to pursue treatments specific to your particular needs.

The cost varies, depending on a number of variables, but is usually somewhere between $750 and $1200.

Call me if you'd like additional information or to schedule an appointment. Again, thanks for your interest!

Again, to diagnose or not is a very personal decision, but this is what it should look like if the person knows what they are doing. If you need modifications to make it through school, you generally cannot get those without a diagnosis. I am glad to hear that things in your current situation worked out anyway.

Yeah, It's something I want to do, I'm hoping to get it done through my 4 year universities testing center once I transfer next year.



I just got done reading something interesting. I went and had a conversation with my mom, and she mentioned something I had never heard of before. Apparently when she was in school, in the 60's, they taught something called "new Math". Apparently it was designed to introduce higher math concepts to younger and younger kids in the hopes they could catch up with the soviets in terms of education attainment.

However, the program was basically a colossal failure, and lead to books such as "Why Johnny Can't Add: the Failure of the New Math.". Even Richard Feynemen spoke out against this bizarre new math which used Base 8 instead of Base 10.

Needless to say, my mom, dad, and uncle and aunt are all not exactly proficient at mathematics. What they do know how to do, they learned by getting really good teachers who took the time to teach them.

My two cousins, My sister and I also do not have a firm understanding of math, and I'm wondering now if what we are dealing with is some sort of trickle down effect. Since so much school work is now done at home, if you don't have some one who understands it and can help you with your homework.. you don't excel at the homework.. barring being exceptionally bright or inclined to do it on your own. No Help, you begin to fall behind, the further behind you fall, the less able you are to do the newer material due to having shakier and shakier foundations.

It would explain why my friends, who are the same age as me, but who have younger parents seem to have a slightly easier time at this than I do..

But of course.. causation and correlation and all that.. I'm not saying it's probable.. only possible.

From what I've heard about the 'new math', the ideas were good, but they were poorly executed. There's a thing called set theory, and it has an incredible importance to modern mathematics and the basics are really pretty intuitive. The way they taught it just confused people, though, and they didn't really explain why this idea was so important.


I read something Feynman wrote about it, and he had less of a problem with the idea than the execution of the idea. Actually teaching what different bases are and how they work can lead to a better understanding of how base 10 works, even if you never actually use a different base in practice, so that part I wouldn't have a problem with.

There are some more modern reform efforts, and I've read a bit about them, too. They seem to take more of a 'self-discovery' tack on it, and try to pose problems to a group of students to try to solve. (By 'problems' here, I'm actually talking about actually substantial problems, not just calculations.) There are good and bad things about this approach, IMHO. The teachers have to buy into the idea before it has a chance of working. There is usually group work involved, and so you can get some students who just sit there without a clue while some other student in the group ends up doing all the work, which isn't any good except for the one doing the work. The basic idea of this reform movement is also good -- they want students to discover things themselves, which provably leads to better understanding and retention. The problem with it is that some of the solutions to these things are not obvious and originally took a talented mathematician to figure out in the first place, so you don't necessarily get the best way to do it.


I think it's more that math is a hard subject that typically isn't taught very well. The idea that shaky foundations hurt you is definitely correct.

I know that feel, man.
Have you tried getting an interview with someone important to try and get leniency on account of your other good grades?