I think it'd be safer to mandate all guys be blindfolded.

Oh yeah! One of my friends lists his as King Kong.

OMG!

The reason I said counseling is because she said it's been going on for several months.

Kareni can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure she meant intermediate algebra.

Yes, I would really look into counseling if you can find someone.

This SPECIFIC company is either people who know **** well what the company's doing or people who are too stupid to be let out alone. I'll concede that for most telemarketers it's true and usually I just say 'no thanks' and hang up. And to answer the 'who actually gives them money' -- enough to make it worthwhile. The elderly and confused. The gullible. I know people who HAVE done this as well as people who've had their elderly relatives do this.

If he is the type who does well with Saxon and 'gets' math using it better than other methods, I would go ahead and use it. There are plenty of people who have done Saxon and taken further math and done just fine. Now, if he's unable to apply what he's learned in Saxon to problems outside of the Saxon context, then I would look to supplement with word problems from another source.

This one is also nice and cheap. http://www.amazon.com/Arithmetic-Easy-Way-Barrons-E-Z/dp/B005EP1RGM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1349293163&sr=8-2&keywords=arithmetic Might be worthwhile as a reference.

Depends on where you live. And there certainly are a lot who think 'Joe has a heavy accent (the type doesn't matter)', or 'Joe doesn't use standard English when he speaks', or even 'Well, Joe is doing okay now, but his brother/mother is (whatever)', so therefore 'Joe must be in the slow reading group'.

What on earth did I say to convince you that I thought white/asian kids were smart and the rest were stupid? The issue (and sorry for the sarcasm, apparently it got a little lost) was that minority kids with GOOD test scores were being put in the lower tracks, whereas the non-minority kids with BAD test scores were being put into the upper tracks.

If you can FIND it, the Smithsonian did a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful coffee table book called Thread of Life about 1982. I spent so many many many hours poring over first the pictures and then the text as a kid. The text will undeniably be far too advanced for her but you could easily let her look at the pictures while you summarize the text.

I have spoken with practicing teachers who have told me that they had kids in their 'low-track' classes who scored in the 70th percentile, and kids in the 'prep-track' who scored in the 15th. Guess the races? That being said, I don't think that doing away with the admissions tests is the answer, unless it can be shown that the students who do not pass the admissions test do just as well with the same courseload. Q: Does everyone have the same access to the level of learning required to score well on this test, regardless of intellect? A: No. It sucks, but not really. Q: Does the lack of prior learning matter in the ability to absorb a really elite school's curriculum? A: Unfortunately, I believe that it does. I truly believe that admitting students who are not prepared for the rigor of the coursework does a disservice to both the school and the student.

:iagree: with both points.

Any sci-fi nerds may enjoy these pictures from comic con. http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/07/22/super-heroes-vs-the-westboro-baptist-church/

The problem is that shortcutting with the = leads to writing things that are actively incorrect, and not distinguishing between them in writing frequently leads to confusion between the two. So although I understand people who have writing issues, I think it's important to teach other ways to shortcut (like the ones you've outlined). I don't like using the implication arrow for this, so I prefer to see the next step written simply as -> (hey! it's one fewer stroke!), but that is a perfectly legitimate way of shortcutting.

I tend to use my left index finger for c, but sometimes it ends up being the middle finger depending on what I'm typing. I have not taken a typing class, but simply learned to type by typing (and by playing multi-user dungeons online while I was in college.) However, I type rapidly without looking at the keys, and feel no urge to change at this point. Since we're looking: x may be with the left middle finger, the left index finger, or the left ring finger depending on what I'm typing and where my hands are. For example, in 'index' and 'example' I end up with the left ring finger. However, with 'maximum' it ends up being the index finger because I hit 'a' with the finger finger and the index is simply the most convenient. 'z' is almost always the left ring finger. I tend to use the pinky mostly for shift, tab, and caps lock, however, sometimes it ends up typing 'a' or 'q'. ETA: The last typing test I took (for a temp agency) scored me at 129 with 99% accuracy.

Agree. I used myfitnesspal instead of sparkpeople, but both are perfectly adequate.

Yes, the biggest issue is the improper use of equals. We spend a lot of time at university trying to BREAK people of this habit. A common thing I see in algebra classes is 'x - 2 = 0 = x = 2'. This is a particular problem when you are working with multiple equations using transitivity, and the whole point is that a = b = c means that a = c.

I think it's especially important for kids who are NOT going into the sciences. (at university) a fair part of our math for liberal arts class is statistics, roughly on the level of 'how to lie with statistics'.

As I recall (sorry, no citation), they make a fair amount of money from suing people who do that for assault.

Thanks for mentioning this -- I like the looks of this book.

Found the chapter test for chalkdust's algebra 1 book as part of a preview on google books. Looks like they don't go beyond two variable systems. This is not, btw, a slight on Chalkdust -- AOPS simply takes just about every topic further. Chalkdust is a very solid general course that will prepare a student amply for university.

note: x^2 means x squared. f(2+h) means that you're putting (2+h) into the function instead of x. So wherever you see an x, change it to (2+h). So f(2+h) = (2+h)^2 - (2+h) + 1. We know that f(2) = 4-2+1 = 3, so our difference quotient is: ((2+h)^2 - (2+h) + 1) - 3 -------------------------- h When we go to simplify this, we must be careful to square (2+h) properly. It is a *very* common mistake to try to write '4+h^2' instead ... watch out for this! (2+h)^2 = 2^2 + 2*2*h + h^2 = 4 + 4h + h^2. We also have to be careful to distribute the minus sign through the parentheses. So we get: (4 + 4h + h^2 - 2 - h + 1) -3 ---------------------------- h After combining like terms, we get: 3h + h^2 --------- h Another REALLY COMMON error to watch out for here is improper cancellation. We can't just start crossing off h's. We have to factor first. After factoring, we get: h(3+h) ------ h And then we can cancel the h's to get 3+h, which hopefully is the answer she was looking for; if not, there may be a typo in the answer book.

Ayup.