please help me solve the following (show the work done):

[Marat]

i won't be embarassed if i have to take it again....i firmly believe i DO in fact have a poor teacher of the subject......i know SHE knows the material, but she's not a good teacher of it.....(also we only meet 1 day a week for 3 hours so you forget it as quick as you learn it)

I'm aware my two cents aren't asked for and I know I'm going to come off like an asshole. I'm also aware that you're a grown man and I'm not trying to talk down to you, but rather perhaps provide some insight that I have from my own academic experience. If you aren't interested in answering my questions, that is fine. I'm mainly going to give my opinion for the sake of posterity:

What qualities of your teacher make him bad?

Your enrollment in the class makes you responsible for understanding the material that is, at least, on the syllabus.

At the college level (and even going back to the middle school level, depending on the program), the professor's responsibility is to lay out the information and the burden is on the student to learn it. The time spent in class is not designed for teaching the material, rather, it is designed to provide the minimum amount of information required in order learn the material on one's own.

Additionally, retaking the class does not significantly increase the likelihood that one willl pass it the second time, especially if that student's study habits are the same. I wouldn't recommend settling with the idea that you'll fail the class and take it again if you still have the opportunity to pass this semester.

As you said yourself, 'you forget it as quick as you learn it'. Again, the class time is not designed for allowing one to commit a significant amount of information to memory. The difference between a good student and a poor student is separated by the measures taken outside of class to learn the information.

What do you do outside of class to learn the information?

 

[MDR]

I'm aware my two cents aren't asked for and I know I'm going to come off like an asshole. I'm also aware that you're a grown man and I'm not trying to talk down to you, but rather perhaps provide some insight that I have from my own academic experience. If you aren't interested in answering my questions, that is fine. I'm mainly going to give my opinion for the sake of posterity:

What qualities of your teacher make him bad?

Your enrollment in the class makes you responsible for understanding the material that is, at least, on the syllabus.

At the college level (and even going back to the middle school level, depending on the program), the professor's responsibility is to lay out the information and the burden is on the student to learn it. The time spent in class is not designed for teaching the material, rather, it is designed to provide the minimum amount of information required in order learn the material on one's own.

Additionally, retaking the class does not significantly increase the likelihood that one willl pass it the second time, especially if that student's study habits are the same. I wouldn't recommend settling with the idea that you'll fail the class and take it again if you still have the opportunity to pass this semester.

As you said yourself, 'you forget it as quick as you learn it'. Again, the class time is not designed for allowing one to commit a significant amount of information to memory. The difference between a good student and a poor student is separated by the measures taken outside of class to learn the information.

What do you do outside of class to learn the information?

In just a few paragraphs, you basically summed up the problem with the American education system as I see it. Teachers are being held accountable for students learning in their classes when students are unwilling to take responsibility for their part of the deal. Test scores are held up as the ultimate measurement of student performance, yet these same tests are seen by the majority of students as a meaningless exercise not worthy of their attention. Teachers actually losing their jobs because unmotivated learners refuse to put in any effort on their own to learn the material. Our president wants to pay teachers according to student scores on these meaningless, poorly written exams. That is frightening.

The fact is that students who are focused on learning and motivated to achieve beyond the classroom can take and excel on these standardized tests with virtually no effort because the expectations have been dumbed down to the point of utter meaninglessness. The problem is that this kind of motivation is a rarity, and students expect to learn all the material in class, and spend no time learning on their own. When I was in school, we were taught that time spent on the work in any given class overall should be roughly four times the time spent in class. Three hours a week in class equals twelve hours of personal study time. I teach Juniors and Seniors in high school, and many enter my class never having read an entire book. Again, frightening. Students know for the most part they can cruise by and pass classes with little or no effort .

The end result is college students who are woefully unprepared for the rigors of academia. No ability to study independently, and no motivation to learn beyond the classroom. Again. Frightening.

 

[Marat]

The fact is that students who are focused on learning and motivated to achieve beyond the classroom can take and excel on these standardized tests with virtually no effort because the expectations have been dumbed down to the point of utter meaninglessness. The problem is that this kind of motivation is a rarity, and students expect to learn all the material in class, and spend no time learning on their own.

While the students are under the parent's care, it is the parent's responsibility to ensure that the students are doing what is necessary to do well in school. The onus is mostly on the parents, not the teachers, for the students to succeed. A teacher can tell the students to study outside of class until their faces turn blue but the fact is that the teachers do not have the same authority as the parents have. Unfortunately, it's easy to blame teachers but difficult to blame the parents. Good grades come from hard work. It's the parent's job to instill that work ethic. There's are always the outliers -- the students that don't have to do 'anything' to succeed, but they are the exception. There are also the students that work hard and don't succeed, they are the exception too.

Frankly, the material covered at the high school level isn't terribly difficult. We're talking about algebra and general chemistry, not theoretical physics. MDR, how frequently do you come across a student that has put in the 12 hours of personal study time who hasn't succeeded? If all your students even studied for ONE uninterrupted hour a day for your class, would you anticipate anybody even getting below a B? How many of your students actually read the textbook? Answer the questions in the book? Do the practice problems?

Regarding standardized tests: it's not a coincidence that "A" students are in the 99th percentile and D students are in the 30th.

 

[MDR]

While the students are under the parent's care, it is the parent's responsibility to ensure that the students are doing what is necessary to do well in school. The onus is mostly on the parents, not the teachers, for the students to succeed. A teacher can tell the students to study outside of class until their faces turn blue but the fact is that the teachers do not have the same authority as the parents have. Unfortunately, it's easy to blame teachers but difficult to blame the parents. Good grades come from hard work. It's the parent's job to instill that work ethic. There's are always the outliers -- the students that don't have to do 'anything' to succeed, but they are the exception. There are also the students that work hard and don't succeed, they are the exception too.

Frankly, the material covered at the high school level isn't terribly difficult. We're talking about algebra and general chemistry, not theoretical physics. MDR, how frequently do you come across a student that has put in the 12 hours of personal study time who hasn't succeeded? If all your students even studied for ONE uninterrupted hour a day for your class, would you anticipate anybody even getting below a B? How many of your students actually read the textbook? Answer the questions in the book? Do the practice problems?

Regarding standardized tests: it's not a coincidence that "A" students are in the 99th percentile and D students are in the 30th.

If I can get a student to focus and dedicate the kind of time suggested, I've never seen one fail, in ten years of teaching. I'm an English Teacher, so my biggest problem is to convince my students of the inherent value of reading and reading classic literature in particular. Understanding what they are reading usually starts in class, as we walk through the text, sentence by sentence, until they are able to grasp the basic meaning of the story. Next comes the explanation of basic literary terms and how authors use these techniques to effectively convey meaning, along with all the elements that make up great writing.

The unfortunate thing about standardized tests is that many students, even the "A" students, are so bored and detached from the process, they see no reward or value in doing well. No grades are attached. College bound students only care about SAT or ACT tests. They are wholly unmotivated, unless they are in that select group who are intrinsically motivated towards success through their own desire to do the best they possibly can in every academic challenge.

Reading well is indelibly connected to writing well, and students who can not read can never hope to write well. Independent reading is practically a thing of the past in this country amongst young people. Yet teachers are expected to somehow turn these students into proficient writers when the act of opening a book is foreign to them. The insanity of it all is simply mind-boggling, but a teacher risks their very livelihood for even suggesting any of the above. No child left behind. Should be every child left behind.

You are correct about parental involvement. If a kid has that on their side, they have a chance of overcoming all of this. Parents do have far more power than teachers. The unfortunate thing is that all too many parents neglect this responsibility, and expect schools to do the parenting for them.
The result is what you see all too often in the schools; an underprepared student with no real skills for lift or higher education graduating with the misguided notion that they are prepared for the challenges of life, when in fact they are prepared for nothing.

 

[irish_2003]

well just so everyone knows, i didn't asked for assistance because i didn't want to do the work.....in fact i took several peoples responses and compared it to the work i've done and learned how to do two of the methods, but as stated it's easily forgotten......as i've said i'm ok if i have to repeat the class to get my "C" grade i need, but seeing the actual correct way it's done has helped me with 2 out of the 3 problems i wasn't able to understand on my own.....there were 10 total problems with 3-4 parts each on this test....i think i will pass, but barely.....thank you everyone for all of your help.....

 

[MDR]

i won't be embarassed if i have to take it again....i firmly believe i DO in fact have a poor teacher of the subject......i know SHE knows the material, but she's not a good teacher of it.....(also we only meet 1 day a week for 3 hours so you forget it as quick as you learn it)

Sometimes tremendous personal knowledge of a given subject area does not translate well to the classroom. You have to be able to convey that knowledge in an understandable way for the student. Good teaching is a learned skill; most of us are not natural born teachers.

 

[juggernaut]

Dude this shit is easy if you don't figure it out now you'll forever fall behind in harder math classes and when you start physics and other science courses. I thought I would never use trig and somehow the stars have aligned so that I have to use it often in my job to find optimum back support heights for tilting solar arrays.....

be nice...fucking hated math/algebra when I was in school and had to teach it to gang members. Not easy at all. all the gave a shit about was how much is a gram?

 

[irish_2003]

be nice...fucking hated math/algebra when I was in school and had to teach it to gang members. Not easy at all. all the gave a shit about was how much is a gram?

ya honestly my other classes towards my degree are really easy for me....i've always had difficulties with math.....fortunately it's the only such class i need for my program......

 

[Marat]

irish, what was the third problem? feel free to post any questions that you don't understand

 

[irish_2003]

irish, what was the third problem? feel free to post any questions that you don't understand

the 3 problems were in my opening post.......the hardest one for me was the substition method and we also had to show our work/checking it.....i'm submitting it as is tonight with the work i've done, but it's nice to know that our lifting community isn't just brawn and no brain and i appreciate everyone's help......we'll get another assignment tonight so i'm sure i'll have more questions over the weekend

 

[juggernaut]

ya honestly my other classes towards my degree are really easy for me....i've always had difficulties with math.....fortunately it's the only such class i need for my program......

Same here. Only class they me take 3 fucking times over. I hate math and always will.

 

[Marat]

I see what you mean. That particular substitution problem was a bit tricky, there were lots of places were one could've been caught up. Ask away if you have any questions about the overall process of solving a generic substitution problem -- I you have a final exam or anything like that, they are likely to show up again.

 

[maniclion]

be nice...fucking hated math/algebra when I was in school and had to teach it to gang members. Not easy at all. all the gave a shit about was how much is a gram?

I was being nice....like I said I failed Algebra in 9th grade because I hated math and had dyslexia adding to the confusion of letters and numbers not to mention a teacher who flew through the lesson and would leave us to do the homework in class, everyone would be finished before class ended no one wanted to help the retard(me) even though I was doing better than them in english, biology, etc., but the next year I had a teacher who knew dyslexics and she was sympathetic....but it wasn't until college that I found the best teacher I've ever met who was a specialist with kindergärtners with dyslexia, he fucking laid the formulas and methods out in a way that everything suddenly clicked in my head and I was actually loving math, if I had stayed in school I could probably have even majored in mathematics because it was all so clear....but I am a word man I love manipulating our language to form equations as beautiful as E=MC², it was my first love and will always be....Poetry to me is like finding the right formula for words to = the right state of mind....

 

[MDR]

I was being nice....like I said I failed Algebra in 9th grade because I hated math and had dyslexia adding to the confusion of letters and numbers not to mention a teacher who flew through the lesson and would leave us to do the homework in class, everyone would be finished before class ended no one wanted to help the retard(me) even though I was doing better than them in english, biology, etc., but the next year I had a teacher who knew dyslexics and she was sympathetic....but it wasn't until college that I found the best teacher I've ever met who was a specialist with kindergärtners with dyslexia, he fucking laid the formulas and methods out in a way that everything suddenly clicked in my head and I was actually loving math, if I had stayed in school I could probably have even majored in mathematics because it was all so clear....but I am a word man I love manipulating our language to form equations as beautiful as E=MC², it was my first love and will always be....Poetry to me is like finding the right formula for words to = the right state of mind....

I think I was drawn to language because my father was a Math guy and loved the black and white nature of teaching math. There is a right answer and a wrong answer.

As an English major, there are shades of Grey everywhere. Absolutes are almost nonexistent, except maybe in grammatical studies. Even there, every rule has exceptions. But when it comes to literary analysis, there are multiple ways to look at and see most everything. Very much appeals to the way I tend to see the world. Very few rules apply the same to everybody and every thing in every situation. Great Literature is a reflection of the world and all the people in it. I find that incredibly exciting. Guess I just don't care much for limits, particularly when it comes to artistic expression and perception.

 

[irish_2003]

thank god that unit is done.....now we're doing stuff i remember from 18 years ago.....adding,subtracting,multiplying polynomials,bi/tri/quad, etc.......i had half the homework completed for next week already during class......