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Reply 80
it's difficult. i prefer chemistry :colondollar:

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Reply 81
Original post by navarre
It's just so boring. You have this number, and if you do something to it it changes into another number. Yawn. As someone whose favourite subject at school was always history, with its exciting plot twists, murders, back stabbing and drama, maths by contrast was just dull and uneventful.

As one famous man once said, "A page of history is worth a book of mathematics".


Read Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. It is a history book, too.
Strange. I have come across few people who dislike Maths.
Original post by Zhy
Because maths sucks and anyone who takes an A-level in it is stupid!!


Dear lord :facepalm:
I have relatives in Korea and I've noticed a few differences:

At a younger age Koreans are actively encouraged to study maths. In the UK, with many primary school teachers not good at maths (I think something like 4% of primary teachers took Maths post-GCSE) and often with a personal disliking of maths, it becomes almost acceptable to be not very good at it and hate it. I remember my first teacher telling me that you could only ever be good at English or maths ( :no: ) and she sort of dismissed it as a neccesary evil. This attitude towards the subject was conveyed through her pupils. From what I've heard of others, it's a very similar story.

Meanwhile in Korea, a real emphasis is put on maths so it is seen as just a plain neccesary subject rather than a hoop for higher education. The level of difficulty increases more rapidly (as parents have often taught basic math to pre-schoolers) and they cover topics like Differentiation at school year 8 while I personally never did that until Y12.

I just feel now there is an acceptance amongst people who hate maths and put down their poor achieve,nt to the fact they dislike the subject (which is fair enough really) and then if they are applying for anything but Science at uni, it seems to be dismissed as something you're allowed to fail at unless you have natural aptitude. Even in science courses, Maths doesn't become a requirement until you start looking at studying Maths or Physics, even though it is an underlying component of all science subjects. My Korean relatives though, frown upon bad grades in maths. Failing isn't quite as acceptable there.

I think there is a lot wrong with the Korean education system and the culture surrounding it, however I feel our nation's hatred of maths is down to cultural reasons rather than the difficulty of the subject.
Original post by Airess3
Why do people in the western countries generally hate Maths? I only know a minority of people who really like maths and find it interesting. But why is there such a dislike about maths in our society? Is it because people have poor numeracy skills resulting in them finding it difficult and boring?? Or is it because of people's lack of determination to practice and do well in Maths? So they give up easily. Why is it genuinely more acceptable to be bad at maths but not in some other subjects like English? And if you are good at or like maths, you are considered as a geek of some sort?


In my experience I think that the people I knew that hated maths were the ones who couldn't do it- I was the same a few years ago as I have struggled with maths all my life e.g. been in low class sets etc, and struggled to get a good grade the first time round. Generally people who can't do something end up hating it, that's what happened to me because it is frustration at the end of the day! I think that maybe another reason for hating maths is that it's possible that people find it not very interesting which makes them bored therefore not liking maths.

In the end however after I got some private tuition I managed to understand maths, and believe it or not started to enjoy doing it! :smile: So you see it's down to individual experiences I think!
Scientific studies have shown that those that don't like maths aren't very good at it.
Original post by Zhy
Because maths sucks and anyone who takes an A-level in it is stupid!!


I can't believe anyone is even taking this troll seriously. It is so obvious he is not serious.
If people don't understand something, they generally don't like it
Reply 89
You have to think, and people in the UK are generally stupid and lazy?
Reply 90
Original post by In One Ear
His post was quite obviously dripping in sarcasm. :wink:
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Anyway as a frequenter of the maths forums i'm suprised you didn't recognise his name, he's always posting there. I believe he has aspirations of studying maths at Cambridge (so i doubt he is as venomously opposed to maths as hes making out) and with his grades so far (check out his profile) he is certainly giving himself every chance.

Zhy just likes to troll hardcore though whenever he isn't in the maths forums :tongue:.


Meh, I assume atleast 1 other person actually believes things along the lines what he put, so my point remains (albeit exacted at the wrong person :tongue: )
I like maths to some extent. I really enjoy statistics because that's more like using real situations and using maths to find trends in data.. I enjoy that kind of thing. But then there are some things, like surds, that I can't think of a practical use for in every day life so I just couldn't get my head around them. I'm the kind of person who needs more than an abstract concept; I need to be able to understand WHY I'm doing something and HOW this might be useful to me later in life.
Reply 92
Original post by angela1997
it's difficult. i prefer chemistry :colondollar:

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Good girl. Chemistry is for real men. Not mathematics. Mathematics is for sissies.
Reply 93
In my experience, people don't like it because it's challenging and they don't wanna wait for results/can't be bothered practising. I really like maths even though it drives me insane half the time, but it's very rewarding in the end. I don't really think I've ever had a "bad" maths teacher, (maybe a bad class but ohwell). All of my teachers have been so enthusiastic and love what they do and I think that really does make a difference. I never realised how much I actually enjoyed maths until I was about 14/15.
And yeah it's true that if you do, say adv. higher maths, you'll never use it again unless you go to uni and probably not after that if you don't go into a maths based career. But it's not just solving the sums, it trains your brain to solve problems and think logically. Very useful in jobs and the real world in general.
Reply 94
Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox
I like maths to some extent. I really enjoy statistics because that's more like using real situations and using maths to find trends in data.. I enjoy that kind of thing. But then there are some things, like surds, that I can't think of a practical use for in every day life so I just couldn't get my head around them. I'm the kind of person who needs more than an abstract concept; I need to be able to understand WHY I'm doing something and HOW this might be useful to me later in life.


Spot-on. In fact, statistics and mathematics are often seen as separate, in which case, I'm all for mashing maths to a pulp and replacing it with a different course: Pure Statistics. No longer will Oxford applied mathematicians opt for the easy Mathematics with Statistics course. Instead, they'll be forced to study Statistics with Pure Statistics. There is no point in doing anything that has no use. Physics takes all the usefulness from the maths and puts it into practice. Physics is to maths as sex is to masturbation. Furious, frustrating masturbation.
Reply 95
Original post by ihatebrownbread
Scientific studies have shown that those that don't like maths aren't very good at it.


I'm good at maths, and every time I see one of those silly Horizon :angry: 'maths' :angry: documentaries, I feel like taking a screwdriver and punching several holes in my television screen.
Makes me feel nervous. You have to remember all these rules and calculations and work through a problem really quick beforethe teacher asks you for the answer. And it's a definite answer, there definitley is a right and a wrong when it comes maths. :tongue: The teacher was a hoverer, he'd watch you working through a problem. :unimpressed: I wasn't **** at maths, i was in top set and some people were just sooo quick and it was like 'how did you get that answer?!?'.

grumble grumble grumble
Reply 97
Original post by Zhy
Because maths sucks and anyone who takes an A-level in it is stupid!!


Shut up and get back to your David Beckham studies class.
Original post by 3nTr0pY
Don't let'em do that to you! If maths is/becomes your passion and if you can see yourself doing a numerate job somewhere down the line then go for it. I did physics because I found it fascinating - and it was definitely worth it.


Maths and economics are my two favourite subjects beyond a doubt, but I didn't do further and I have no way to study it (I'm repeating A-levels at the minute as it is, and I doubt I could teach myself how to do further), so u find myself wondering if that'll go against me. Plus there's no obvious career path from maths/economics compared to Optometry or radiotherapy which is what I applied for last time round/will probably be applying to this time round.
It's logical - which I like, however most of the tipics we cover at A Level, unless you do Maths at uni, have no relevance to life whatsoever, it can be boring as well

Simple example, what are people more suspicious of,

Saying, "I loved studying American history today, we looked at the 1929 crash"

Or saying "I loved studying Maths today, we looked at Binomial Expansions"

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