Originally posted by: TC10284
DrPizza,
No disrespect but that did frighten me a little. I have never been good with word problems and I have a 3.8+ GPA at my community college (yes, I realize this is just a community college) that concerns me if I do poorly in the class.
I am trying, it's just math has never been my subject (probably one reason I dislike programming and favor hardware/networking). Luckily, I do have some help, my GF is very skilled at word problems and other math (probably why she likes programming lol). It's just she's not here all the time.
I can pull out most of the information now, it is just that I cannot easily start a formula. My GF says that I'm trying to make things too complicated or that I'm trying to do to much work at once. But, I was not able to do any of the problems without her help unfortunately =/
Friday was the last day spent on that section, but, I'd still like to be able to do them. :disgust:
I would never say "just a community college" - community colleges vary quite widely in their rigor. Example: 2-year RN graduates from my local community college have a 100% pass rate on the nursing boards... superior to the rate from many 4-year RN prgrams at more prestigious universities. It took the local CC quite a long time to shake their "mickey mouse, hold your hand" school image, in fact, they're still working to shake that image, but they certainly don't lack the rigor found in a typical university.
My post wasn't meant to frighten you - I really meant that at this point, you may want to get some contacts who can readily provide help for you. There are quite a few people here who are quite willing to provide support, although at times, time can be a factor. I am surprised, however, if the only time your teacher addresses word problems is during one unit. I found long ago that my calculus students were very poor at working on word problems. They typically all excel at doing "the calculus part" - they labored away on all the algebraic steps after the "calculus" step, usually successfully. However, they struggled to set up the initial problems when presented as a word problem (related rates problems, relative min/max, absolute min/max problems, real-world applications, differential equation applications, etc.)
Good luck. It sounds like you're really trying - that's the most important part.