If you're weak at maths does that mean your thick?

Jawgap · 21-07-2016 01:21PM

strawdog wrote: »

I was about to say the same. In School in the 90's I'd poor teachers, poor text books, and found the L.C. syllabus a mess. Found it impossible to fill in the gaps without paying for expensive grinds. I hope today teaching has improved and the syllabus is a bit more joined up and practical

Likewise. I barely scraped a good pass at lower level maths, and only developed a genuine and deeper insight into the bits relevant to my work when I went to uni in the UK for a masters and one of the lecturers there who took those of us classed as 'weak' at maths for extra session. I learned more in one term listening and talking to him than I did in 5 years of secondary maths teaching here.

Which is not to say Stephen Hawking is sh1tting himself - but I got enough to get interested in a relevant area and didn't have to learn by rote.

Your Face · 21-07-2016 01:22PM

Yes, yes it does.

Wibbs · 21-07-2016 01:25PM

If there is a dyslexia of maths I have it.

HensVassal · 21-07-2016 01:25PM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I have big problems with clockwise and anticlockwise. Not ideal for someone who spends half their day screwing.

Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey

mansize · 21-07-2016 01:25PM

Thick is such a curt word

5rtytry56 · 21-07-2016 01:27PM

Your Face wrote: »

Yes, yes it does.

OP should create a POLL with 2 OPTIONS = YES AND NO

The Yes side would win.

HensVassal · 21-07-2016 01:30PM

Patrick_Swayze wrote: »

Maths is basically the ability to solve problems so yes if you are weak at it you are generally not as natural smart as others but i wouldn't go as far as saying thick

Bollocks. Problems are used in Maths to explain the concepts. One could say literally everything is the art of solving problems. Following a recipe to bake a cake is effectively solving a problem of not having something to eat.

Junkyard Tom · 21-07-2016 01:31PM

Didn't Einstein kill his maths teacher or something? He then went on to invent the light bulb by using nothing but numbers and his bare wit.

21-07-2016 01:32PM

Wibbs wrote: »

If there is a dyslexia of maths I have it.

It's called dyscalculia and it sucks. I got a D2 at pass maths in the Leaving Cert. Or whatever the bottom one before a fail is. But I excelled in other subjects.

Also is there not some sort of irony in the OP asking whether it makes someone thick, while having a typo in the title?

Permabear · 21-07-2016 01:34PM

This post has been deleted.

The Backwards Man · 21-07-2016 01:35PM

HensVassal wrote: »

Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey

Left hand thread sheary.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 21-07-2016 01:42PM

Wibbs wrote: »

If there is a dyslexia of maths I have it.

This proves the theory is false. Wibbs is the smartest man on Boards.:p

StupidLikeAFox · 21-07-2016 01:42PM

Thoie wrote: »

Dyscalculia, dyslexia and the occasional typo aside, I don't expect everyone to be able to do differential calculus, or write novels. If you leave school without the following skills I'll think you're of below average intelligence:
Realise that if it takes 3 people 3 hours to paint a wall, it won't take 6 people 6 hours to paint the same wall.

Understand that "could of" is incorrect.

Be aware of common homophones, and use the correct word in the correct place.

Figure out how to adapt a recipe that serves 4 people to cater for a different number of diners.

Work out how many tins of paint you'll need if that wall is 10m x 5m, and a tin of paint covers 30 square meters.

Be able to check if you were given the correct change in a shop.

If I say I'll meet you back here in an hour, that you can work out when that will be.

...like Graham Norton?

kerryked · 21-07-2016 02:12PM

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

...like Graham Norton?

No no, homophones are people that don't like gays..

:rolleyes:

pumpkin4life · 21-07-2016 02:24PM

I think a lot of people think they're worse at maths then they actually are. Mainly because

1) 99% of people find maths boring as ****e.

2) Its taught poorly at schools. Take a look at a poorly written maths textbook and a Khan Academy video. World of difference.

3) Unless you're an engineer/statistician etc (and even then), you don't really need it bar some basic arithmetic.

ScumLord · 21-07-2016 02:28PM

The problem is there are way too many variables to say for sure. If you had a crappy maths teacher then it's fairly likely you'll turn out bad at maths.

I repeated a year in school, was doing foundation maths and failing. Our new teacher was a fecking legend of a teacher. We weren't allowed to do foundation maths anymore, everyone not only passed the class but did quite well, some people moved up to honours maths. The teacher made all the difference.

The majority of daily basic maths is just about practice, the more you do it the better you'll get at it. I don't really expect people to be good at advanced maths unless they have some reason to use it. General I think there's no skill that can't be learned and passed on.

If you think you're bad at maths, you're probably just not doing enough maths, or just don't need to do maths so your brain isn't going to waste energy on it.

Ficheall · 21-07-2016 02:32PM

Three men are each given a hat with a strictly positive integer (natural number strictly greater than 0) on it. They can't see their own number, but they can see the numbers on the other two, and they know that one of the numbers is the sum of the other two.
They are all expert logicians, and therefore, seemingly, not thick.

The first person says he does not know what number is on his hat.
The second person then says that the number on his hat is 15.
What numbers are on each of the other two hats?

ancapailldorcha · 21-07-2016 02:32PM

kerryked wrote: »

Thread title asks if youre not good at maths does it mean youre thick, well we've just proven that you don't have to be bad at maths to still be thick.

Congratulations you win. :pac:

Mod: Don't have a go at other users please. Thanks.

demanufactured · 21-07-2016 02:33PM

fryup wrote: »

Well does it?

i've heard it mentioned in conversations over the years

No....I am terrible at maths ....I am an IT Admin....am I thick?

ScumLord · 21-07-2016 02:33PM

Ficheall wrote: »

Three men are each given a hat with a strictly positive integer (natural number strictly greater than 0) on it. They can't see their own number, but they can see the numbers on the other two, and they know that one of the numbers is the sum of the other two.
They are all expert logicians, and therefore, seemingly, not thick.

The first person says he does not know what number is on his hat.
The second person then says that the number on his hat is 15.
What numbers are on each of the other two hats?

I'd accuse the second person of cheating, how does he know he's own number?

IvyTheTerrible · 21-07-2016 02:35PM

Ficheall wrote: »

Three men are each given a hat with a strictly positive integer (natural number strictly greater than 0) on it. They can't see their own number, but they can see the numbers on the other two, and they know that one of the numbers is the sum of the other two.
They are all expert logicians, and therefore, seemingly, not thick.

The first person says he does not know what number is on his hat.
The second person then says that the number on his hat is 15.
What numbers are on each of the other two hats?

1 and 14?

kumate_champ07 · 21-07-2016 02:43PM

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

A good maths teacher is a blessing, a bad teacher can probably wreck your confidence for life.

I never heard this before and its very accurate. I went from A's and B's to F's in 1 year when my teacher changed and the classroom was overpopulated. in 6th year I had a better teacher but most of the students didnt bother working, including me. it wasnt until the nights before the exams when he offered his free time to help revise. I went from F's to a C from 2x2hr sessions with this teacher, there might have been 10-15 people who turned up for those evenings, I dont know if the others saw the same improvement.

that maths teacher became the principal a few years later and is well respected in the town. I basically got into college because of him.

I dropped out of college tho(was an immature 17yr old), but it was nice to have had the chance to go

YiddoOConnell · 21-07-2016 02:44PM

But here is a fair point, if you're great at maths or not and your in situation where you are buying multiple things, and for one second you'd love to know what the total cost will be, is it being thick or smart by taking out your smartphone and doing the calculations or from a business side of things does it look thick by doing the calculations on a calculator when you're adding up the total price.

I'm just saying that over the years weather you are young or old and left school in the number of years, we really don't use our brains as much as we used to, we depend on technology.

Permabear · 21-07-2016 02:48PM

This post has been deleted.

irish bloke · 21-07-2016 02:50PM

I would consider myself very good at maths, being in an engineering role this obviously requires mathematical aptitude.
My wife on the other hand (by her own admission) is quite poor at Maths.

She has a far better sense of direction then me, better grammar, better English, can present better, captivate a crowd better, socially better, knows everyones name after meeting them once (where I can barely remember family members).

I think the myth of “people bad at maths are thick” probably stems from people who are good at Maths

21-07-2016 02:50PM

I was always decent enough at maths but then in Higher Level Leaving Cert, all the number started turning into letters and I was all like

Thoie · 21-07-2016 02:51PM

YiddoOConnell wrote: »

But here is a fair point, if you're great at maths or not and your in situation where you are buying multiple things, and for one second you'd love to know what the total cost will be, is it being thick or smart by taking out your smartphone and doing the calculations or from a business side of things does it look thick by doing the calculations on a calculator when you're adding up the total price.

I'm just saying that over the years weather you are young or old and left school in the number of years, we really don't use our brains as much as we used to, we depend on technology.

I have no problem with people using calculators for speed if you're getting three of those at 47.39, and 5 of those at 20.15 and one of the other yokes at 19.67. At the same time if there was no calculator I'd expect you to be able to do it on a bit of paper or in your head if it really came to it. If you're whipping out the calculator to figure out how much three items at a tenner each will come to, I might look at you a bit funny.

(262.59 if it's annoying you.)

Saipanne · 21-07-2016 02:53PM

I'm convinced that with the right teacher, 95% of students could get high grades in higher level maths.

Gazzmonkey · 21-07-2016 02:53PM

We recently hired a guy from the UK for a high end consulting role but had to let him go as he couldn't get to grips with even the simplest IT tasks & his quality of paperwork was terrible.... he had a PhD in Maths :eek:

In future we'll stick with IT nerds as they seem to be the sharpest of the lot.

21-07-2016 02:54PM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I have big problems with clockwise and anticlockwise. Not ideal for someone who spends half their day screwing.

Jaysis some job you have.

Director: Now BM, I want you to ride these 7 busty beauties in an anticlockwise direction ok.

BM: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!

If you're weak at maths does that mean your thick?

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