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Lial's Introductory Algebra - bombing the tests


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We've been using Intoductory Algebra this year, assigning according to Jann in TX's recommendations, and although ds seems to understand the concepts while doing the regular assignments, he loses it when it comes to the tests. He's been working on each section online after he completes it in the book, for extra practice, too. His test grades have been 84, 59, 75, and 37.

 

He goes over and corrects anything he gets wrong in his daily assignments and then is doing the online practice at interactmath.com. What else can I do to help him? Are there extra quizzes available somewhere, so he has more experience with a "test" type situation? I know some of it is test anxiety, but he just doesn't seem to be retaining the information after he's done with the sections, either.

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How were his scores on the chapter reviews? Students should miss only a FEW on the chapter review...

 

The Mixed Review section of the chapter review is a practice test!

 

If you want, you can scan in his last test (if he showed his work) and I can take a look to see what he is missing. (no charge as this is actually FUN for me).

 

Jann

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How were his scores on the chapter reviews? Students should miss only a FEW on the chapter review...

 

The Mixed Review section of the chapter review is a practice test!

 

If you want, you can scan in his last test (if he showed his work) and I can take a look to see what he is missing. (no charge as this is actually FUN for me).

 

Jann

 

Thanks Jann :) He's been doing OK on his Chapter Reviews, but I have been letting him correct them himself (and correct what he missed), which I guess I will not do from now on. I also have been letting him look back on those and the Mixed Review if he needs to. . .in retrospect, I can see that he shouldn't be looking back.

 

The biggest issue on this last test (Ch 4) was he didn't even try on about 6 of the problems - he said he didn't remember how to do them at all. . .so there's nothing to see. It's like he can hold on to the information and the process for doing the work for that section, but once he's been a little removed from it, and can't look back to help, he just freaks out. And he was even going over every section in Ch 4 this morning before he took the test, so I don't know. . .

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Are you using the 8th edition?

If so you CAN go on to chapter 5-- and go through most of chapter 7 without needing anything from the first part of the text... you can move then come back after a month or two and go through chapter 4 again-- it should go a lot better... Chapter 4 is a long/hard chapter for many students.

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Are you using the 8th edition?

If so you CAN go on to chapter 5-- and go through most of chapter 7 without needing anything from the first part of the text... you can move then come back after a month or two and go through chapter 4 again-- it should go a lot better... Chapter 4 is a long/hard chapter for many students.

 

Yes, we're using the 8th edition. That info is good to know - I was thinking about having him repeat Ch 4 now, but if that's the case, I think we'll wait and save the re-do til later.

 

Thank you so much for your help! :)

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Not in Lial's so take this with a grain of salt. But I did notice that my algebra boys thought they were doing fine all the way through the review section of AoPS chapters. But they were struggling more than they thought on being able to come up with the process and set ups on their own.

 

One thing I realized is that they were following the examples pretty passively. They weren't working them out on their own and then checking their understanding.

 

And sometimes they can see that there must be an easy way to solve a question, but they can't figure it out. So they might decide to not try at all, rather than dig in, even if what they do is the long way of solving the problem.

 

I've tried various approaches. Sometimes we go through the review questions together. Sometimes I make them explain the problem and answers. Sometimes I pull items from the chapter and make a pretest (I don't even change the numbers most of the time. It's really to see if they know how to set up the problem to find the answer.)

 

And I have also learned to be patient. Algebra is easier than I rememberd, because I've got a lot of experience under my belt that I didn't have at 13. But there was still a recent chapter where I did all the chapter work and wrote a test, only to find that I couldn't solve one of my own test questions. Took me a day of mulling to finally figure out that problem. Yep, I'd walked away and immediately forgotten a key concept.

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And I have also learned to be patient. Algebra is easier than I rememberd, because I've got a lot of experience under my belt that I didn't have at 13. But there was still a recent chapter where I did all the chapter work and wrote a test, only to find that I couldn't solve one of my own test questions. Took me a day of mulling to finally figure out that problem. Yep, I'd walked away and immediately forgotten a key concept.

 

And this is what I need to remember - it's so easy for me now, I'm not always sure how to help him get it.

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