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Maths topics that you just don't like


Abu

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I find Integration by substitution absolutely annoying and irritating. It's either that or my feeble attempt to jog my rusty brain in the middle of the holidays to practice some maths. That didn't go so well. How are you guys finding Maths? I found it great and easy in the first half of the first year, but towards the end of the first year, it's getting harder. :P:lol:

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I find Integration by substitution absolutely annoying and irritating. It's either that or my feeble attempt to jog my rusty brain in the middle of the holidays to practice some maths. That didn't go so well. How are you guys finding Maths? I found it great and easy in the first half of the first year, but towards the end of the first year, it's getting harder. :P:lol:

You are just like me. I used to like the subject at the beginning of the year and do well in the tests, but by the time we reached integration, I got so confused. I guess the best thing is to revise the material and solve as many questions as possible; from the internet, books, and notes to get a grip on the subject.

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omg calculus was the only thing I could do when I was in HL math! and we took the option part of it LOL...

I used to screw up in trig so much ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh identities! what a horror! thank God I got rid of trying to decipher those :P I didn't really stick along for vectors (my friends told me they were pretty hard), stats or probability.. or the rest of the option for that matter... I did do complex numbers :P being names "copmplex" I expected them to be harder tbh :lol:

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You are just like me. I used to like the subject at the beginning of the year and do well in the tests, but by the time we reached integration, I got so confused. I guess the best thing is to revise the material and solve as many questions as possible; from the internet, books, and notes to get a grip on the subject.

Yeah, I guess past papers are the best way to go, except them stupid papers are so damn confusing that sometimes I wish I could drop to SL. But I can't or otherwise I would have to take HL English or Physics. Damn me in the first year. I could've done Visual Arts in photography.

omg calculus was the only thing I could do when I was in HL math! and we took the option part of it LOL...

I used to screw up in trig so much ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh identities! what a horror! thank God I got rid of trying to decipher those I didn't really stick along for vectors (my friends told me they were pretty hard), stats or probability.. or the rest of the option for that matter... I did do complex numbers being names "copmplex" I expected them to be harder tbh

I love it when I actually decipher those identities, I feel proud of myself :lol: . Lol yeah, you would think that complex numbers are really hard, easy so far, but I'm not really interested in doing DeMoivres theorem or something.

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I didn't really stick along for vectors (my friends told me they were pretty hard)

This is just weird. Everyone said vectors HL is hard. And yet it was the one topic I understood and knew perfectly. I had no trouble with it in the exam. In the topic test we did in class for vectors, I got almost full marks (98% - 2% off for a stupid error with the negative sign) and it was the highest grade in the class, the first and ONLY 7 I got (haha) for Math HL ever! So I find it weird that I thought it was easy when everyone say it's hard.

I find Integration by substitution absolutely annoying and irritating.

Yeah, I couldn't do it either at IB, but then I had to revisit it last semester at uni and it was easier. With maths, I ned to learn thing 2 times around before I completely understand and get it. Like conditional probabilities I only really really got the hang of once I had to it again (for the 3rd time!) in uni, I used to make really stupid mistakes with them. Same with calculus. I first did calc in IGCSE Additional Maths and it was a complete mystery to me then (like, I ddn't understand the product and quotient rules at all :lol: ), but at IB it was much better. Maybe it's just the fact that the 2nd time I learn them I'm a bit older ... or maybe it's just hearing things a second time.

Lol yeah, you would think that complex numbers are really hard, easy so far, but I'm not really interested in doing DeMoivres theorem or something.

For a maths topic, I liked complex numbers pretty well. DeMoivres theorem was fun, I wished it had turned up as my proof for induction question in the maths exam though. I knew it so well. :P But instead, we got some stupid matrix proof by induction which I didn't get to finish even though I knew I was going on the right track - ran out of time.

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I first did calc in IGCSE Additional Maths and it was a complete mystery to me then (

You did additional maths? you must have been a genius at Maths HL then? :lol: .

For a maths topic, I liked complex numbers pretty well. DeMoivres theorem was fun, I wished it had turned up as my proof for induction question in the maths exam though. I knew it so well. But instead, we got some stupid matrix proof by induction which I didn't get to finish even though I knew I was going on the right track - ran out of time.

****, you reminded me of that stupid induction. That's another thing that I loathe in Maths HL. It's so damn confusing. I really don't want to do Maths at all, I hope my feelings change when school starts. I don't want to spend the rest of my school days resenting maths. That and the new Maths teacher that I'm going to get because the other one retired.

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You did additional maths? you must have been a genius at Maths HL then?

:lol: *hysterical laugh*

Mate, I got a 5 for Maths HL, never got more than a 5 for class grade for the whole 2 years of IB Maths.

My story with Additional Maths was long and interesting. It started in Grade 8 when my teacher had2 groups in our maths class, one was the normal group, one was the "advanced group" consisted of students who generally moved through the exercises a little faster than the rest of the class, so we got more advanced work so we don't spend half the class gazing into space because we've finished the exercises given. Now, this is 8th grade maths which was ridiculously easy, so I was in that group.

When we got to grade 9, and started IGCSE, our maths teacher (the same guy) decided that that "advanced" group would try and do the IGCSE Maths Extended course in 1 year, taking our IGCSE Maths at the end of grade 9 instead of 10. I was also in that group (my teacher thought I was capable...and I was young and naive, not knowing exactly what taking that class would ensue). That "advanced" class started with about 8 people and dwindled down to about 5...why *I* wasn't one of the ones who dropped it, I don't know... Anyway, the idea of taking IGCSE Maths in 1 year was not only to get it over with, and then spend grade 10 doing Add. Maths, but also get As in Maths. I mean, everyone at my school who ever did IGCSE Maths in 1 year got As or A*s (it's been a running tradition at my school). What did I get for IGCSE Maths Extended after taking it in 1 year? A B. Which isn't bad, but it wasn't spectacular. I think if I'd done it in 2 years I'd gotten an A.

But anyway, by then, the "damage" was done. I was finished with Maths Extended and so had no choice but take Add. Maths in grade 10. I got an E for my mock exam. I barely scraped a C in the real exam.

I was thinking of doing Maths SL at IB. My teacher (who taught my Add Maths, not the one who taught me Maths Extended) again thought I was "capable" of doing HL (how she came to that conclusion when she saw me struggle for an entire year with Add Maths, I don't know). So, partly because of my teacher's opinion, partly because I didn't have any other choice and needed a 3rd HL subject, I ended up taking IB Maths HL.

But, in retrospect, it was all for good. We thankfully covered Stats as our option so it means I know all the theory of the Stats I'm doing this semester at uni, and only have to concentrate on recalling them and applying them.

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:lol: . Well... all I can say that it's a nice story, sort of a fairy tale with a nice ending. Don't you just hate when the school forces stuff upon you saying that you're capable when quite clearly you're not? Happens to me sometimes. Ah well, just 279 days more to go.
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Well... all I can say that it's a nice story, sort of a fairy tale with a nice ending. Don't you just hate when the school forces stuff upon you saying that you're capable when quite clearly you're not? Happens to me sometimes. Ah well, just 279 days more to go.

Well, I had really supportive teachers so I really think they did have faith in my ability. My problem with maths isn't the fact that I don't *get* it, it's just that I don't like it, so I don't try as hard and put as much effort in. And Maths HL was more a matter of practicing a lot. I understand the theory fine when my teacher explain them in class, but I just don't practice and then forget because I can't be boethered. If I don't like something I just do badly in it. (Like I am doing with Accounting right now - compulsory 1st year subject or otherwise I'd never take it).

It was the same with Physics. I was forced into taking Physics which I hated because all my classmates decided to boycott Bio (my only other Science option which I'd been v. happy to take) because we all hated the teacher. So I barely got 4s in Papers 1 and 2, and only managed a 6 because of my lab work and Paper 3 which was on Optics which was the only topic I liked. (See, further proof of my theory: when I like something, I do well).

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Oh yeah, that's everyone I guess. Who does a subject properly when they hate it? I hate Physics so I don't bother to do anything, and my labwork's letting me down. With Maths, I kinda like it but most of the time I don't really get it, especially with the more difficult subjects. Business on the other hand, I don't study for it because, its right up my street. One of these days this philosophy will let me down, and I will have to study for it but until then I don't study and take life easy :lol: .

And yeah, my Physics teacher is just annoying, thank God he's leaving.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I'mjust about to start IB Year 2 and so far the hardest bits have definately been in Integration, substition and that lot, argh its annoying to have to know the individual rules and then do it all again for e, log and Ln *gasp*

But I seem to be getting the hang of it! yay!

Stats has been the easiest topic so far....i even had to teach the class (only 3 doing HL!) an exercise from it once.....ha!

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Guest ambr0sia

I moved down this year from Math HL,

because I figured deadly-stress was something

I could do without.

Now I'm actually a little worried.

It's so easy I feel retarded.

...we're doing bar graphs.

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I moved down this year from Math HL,

because I figured deadly-stress was something

I could do without.

Now I'm actually a little worried.

It's so easy I feel retarded.

...we're doing bar graphs.

haha yeh i did have the thought of going down to SL after like the first few weeks cuz our teacher started on a really hard topic which we had never studied before and all 3 of us were like UM!, but it calmed down after that, we think it was just our maths teacher trying to ditch us so he could have more breaks.... :lol:

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I moved down this year from Math HL,

because I figured deadly-stress was something

I could do without.

Now I'm actually a little worried.

It's so easy I feel retarded.

...we're doing bar graphs.

I don't know why you are doing that because I have finished all the theory for SL Maths and the only thing vaguely like a bar graph is a box and whisker plot.

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