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I Am Horrible At Math

Well, I'm prepared to fail this Calculus test. I just literally don't know anything about what we've been learning for the past month....
ArishMell · 70-79, M
I can sympathise with that although I never took a Calculus test or examination as such.

My experience though shows it can be possible to break the mental wall around something like that, by the angle of approach....

I was [i]taught [/i]Calculus at school - [i]not [/i]as a curriculum subject alone as if it exists outside of Mathematics, but as with all Maths topics, with the standard Maths syllabus. Hence any formal calculus tests would have been within the normal Maths exam.

Nevertheless, I wrote [i]taught[/i] it. I did not [i]learn[/i] it! Not at school.

It was not until some 4 decades after I had left school that I finally twigged what is Differentiation. Not how to do it, but what it means; which would make learning how to do it much easier.

This epiphany came during a technical lecture connected with one of my hobbies, in a club setting, not a college. The lecturer showed us a simple formula and [i]something[/i] I know not what, made me write it in calculus notation...

Helped by this being about a real-world thing not a maths text-book abstraction, it suddenly dawned on me that the formula was a very basic [i]Differential[/i]!

I've not had that happen with Integration though.
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ShaythePanTransMan · 22-25, T
@MalteseFalconPunch I've got a list of what's on the test:
1. Derivatives and inverses of trig
2. Exponential functions and derivatives and inverses of those
3. Derivatives of natural log
4. Logarithmic differentiation
5. Differentials
6. Related rates
7. Implicit differentiation
And yes, I understand none of those topics. Some I can probably bullshit since I'm cheating with notes written in my calculator, but...you expect me to correctly do a related rates problem? noooo.
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ShaythePanTransMan · 22-25, T
@MalteseFalconPunch Exactly. I got a C on the last test...but I did understand basic things for that one. This one? I literally don't understand anything. It's actually I think okay if my Calc grade goes down to a D because my three other classes are either As or going to be As soon. Idk I absolutely need to keep above a 3.0 GPA for my scholarship. If I dip below that, I'll be put on probation for next semester, and I'm not sure if they'll let me have that financial aid for the semester

 
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