This is a post about one of my recent experiences. It *will* bore you.

Just got out of an exam, statistics, which is arguably the hardest subject in my year. It's the reason why only 35% of my year will pass in one try.

Pfffffff.... I'm entirely shook up. That exam totally challenged my views of myself: that I'm smart, and that I'm able to learn whatever subject I want, in half the time it takes the population to do it.

But this one... man. I studied and studied and studied for this, and had nights of staying at home studying and restudying, when everyone else was out partying. But still, I think of how I did on my exam, and I honestly don't know. I think I passed, but I'm not sure at all. I might have failed.

If I failed, I honestly don't know what to change. Previous years I could rationalize lesser grades (which were still great) because I never studied, or because I have an attention disorder. Now I can't rationalize anymore: if my exam went bad, it's because of me. And I really don't know what I can do to deal with that.

Signing off. I hope you all have a good night, in contrast.

The real world can hurt sometimes.

No matter how that exam turned out, it can't change this simple fact. If you can perform well on all subjects, but then have trouble with one, you are not automatically labelled 'stupid'. So don't beat yourself up over it.

I agree with Avenger though. Remember you're still a human, and as such are not perfect :p

The real world? It's a college exam. Hardly the real world..

Yes, it's quite clear this is all your fault. :p

Seriously, if you're getting good grades everywhere else, it's obviously not down to you. More to the point, you should be complaining about it. The grades for the whole class should be vaguely gaussian, if everyone's getting low grades, there's obviously something wrong. We're constantly pestering our lecturers to grade us on a curve as some of our modules are reasonably simple whilst others are insanely difficult.

math is f***ing useless.

Why should you work hard to learn something that any computer could do faster and better?

The real world starts before you are conceived and ends after you're dead. Marks don't mean **** in the intelligence department. Hell, intelligence means **** in the life department. Don't worry about it. You are a better man having failed....;)

THink that if you want.

Because we don't want to be mindless zombies that rely on machines to do everything for us.


...or do we?

[dramatic music]

computers can crunch numbers, but if people dont understnad the concepts behind thoes numbers; the numbers become meaning less.

What Elana said, but also Page, who the **** do you think programs the computers to do statistics? Uh, perhaps someone who has worked hard to understand math? Sheesh.

Page, you can say similar things for different subjects.

Why do English, when all you do is grind through literature and read too much meaning into things?
Why study photography when you're just poncing around with a camera?

OK, I'm biased (I'm doing maths and further maths at A-level) but maths is far from useless. Plus, some bits of pure are just beautiful.

PageWizard is f***ing useless.

Why should you work hard to learn something that any vibrator could do faster and better?

best comeback ever

OMFQ, gold. GOLD.

Face it, you failed.

You're screwed! GET OVER IT.

go party, get drunk.

no worries.


...


*shiftyeyes*
What?

seriously though, sometimes you excel in one place, and it totally conflicts with another subject, or a teacher will disagree with another teacher's philosophy which is the basis of the other class's teaching's and you'll have to assume one thing in one place and another thing in the other. You can't always win.

Just do your best.

And that feeling of "not sure" if oyu passed or failed.
Seeing how you studied hard, I'm thinking you probably did well.

But then again I've said "I totally failed that test" and gotten an A, but I've also said "I think I passed with a C" and bombed it terribly.

So in the end, it can be conlcluded that htere is no basis for my opinion whatsoever.

Hope oyu feel better.

Hey Tenshu, what kind of statistics are you in? If it's advanced stat I may not be able to help, but I took Math Statistics last semester and did well, so I may be able to help you out. Give me a PM if you need to.

You farking win!

Feel free to take a catloaf from my personal stash as a prize.

kyle90 is f***ing awesome.

<3!

Math has its applications Pagewizard.

When a Foward Observer is crawling through foliage and sees an enemy camp, he takes out his GPS or laser target painter. However, they are suffering electrical problems due to certain enviromental conditions such as rain or mud. Knowing how to read a map and work a compass, he pulls out his map and compass and finds where the enemy is and radios the coordinates to the artillery battery. Now, a mile away there is another Forward Observer that happens across an enemy camp, but his GPS or laser target painter work just fine. However, the Paladin artillery battery he sends the transmission to is having problems with the Paladin's auto-targeting systems and they are not working properly. However, the artillery crewmen can manually aim it using radioed coordinates and take into account power, arc, distance, etc.

That example was the first one you could think of?

I'm a prospective field artillery officer, so yes.

Um...


...If people are all retards who don't know math, who the hell is going to program computers? Computers don't automatically know how to do complex mathematical functions. Hell, microcomputers couldn't even do hardware multiplication until the 8088 (IIRC). For the longest time floating point math was also done in software (and still is, today, on embedded devices).

Then there are matrix math libraries. Quaternion libraries. Encryption, encoding and compression.

Tell me: Who's going to develop all of these libraries if nobody has a fundamental understanding of math?

Who's going to develop the processors that all of these are written for? Yes, logic is part of math.

Tell me. Please.


Oh wait, you can't. In fact I'm absolutely certain you can't even differentiate between "mathematics" as a discipline and "basic arithmetic" (which is all computers can be used for on their own).

Thanks for the interest.

I don't exactly know what kind it is. Over here we just call it 'statistics I'. It's an introductory course for social sciences. Stuff we saw, among others:

• central tendency, range
• correlation (Kendall's tau, Spearman, r(xy))
• vectors
• probability (binomial variable, normal distribution, student distribution, chi² distribution)
• point estimation, interval estimation
• testing
• ...

I know all this stuff very well, I can do the exercises no problem. It was just his way of asking questions: 20 questions, each with 5 possible answers. Thing is, and this is evil, you don't know how much are right. Could be 0, could be 5. This means that these 5 answers are all unrelated. So, normally you get a table of data, then one question with different answer possibilities. What he does is present data, then asks 5 different questions. 20*5 questions, and only three hours.

Also, ticking of a correct answer +1 point. Ticking of a wrong answer: -1 point. The ratio is usually more like +1,-1/3. *******.

Typical for his style of exam is him constantly trying to mislead you. Like writing a miniature t after a vector to screw you over. Or asking a seriously expansive question asking you to test a hypothesis, which you can do just fine, but apparently it's still wrong because he didn't mention that x has a normal distribution. Conclusion: -5 points in one question.

I saw exams of previous years, so I could at least defend myself just a little against it. But now he asked questions about a variable called F, and in all five of the questions he asked for a data on variable X. Was he trying to screw us over, or just a typo? I didn't check any answer because I thought it was an unrelated variable, a way of him fooling us. But apparently he miswrote it. Meaning 0 on that question because he was distracted for 5 seconds while writing that exam. Meaning a high probability of my summer vacation getting ****ed up, because of that moron.

Anyway, I'm ranting. Thanks for the help, but I really wouldn't know what to ask. If I have to redo it, I have no clue what I have to do differently: it's just a case of time and unpredictable bastardry working against me. If I ever encounter something difficult, I'll be sure to pm you though. Thanks

Veger: that was hilarious

kyle90 wins!

we need to make a page based on the best comebacks in Massassi history.


Anyways, just keep working at Tenshu and you are sure to pass. I now see why you're having such a difficult time on the exams. Having exams like that makes me sick to the stomach sometimes.

YES I love you Kyle90... come with me into the night and be my love.

then you obviously know nothing of the principles of photography and what goes into making a *good* negative. not just a neg you can make a decent print off of, or taking snapshots with your silly little disposable point and shoots.

can you tell me what makes a good exposure? how many factors go into it? how many places errors can creep into making that exposure?

photography is a science as well as an art. you have to know a lot more than pressing the shutter button at the right time.

Uhm.. Ford? Read his post again.. I think you're missing something very integral there.. heh...

This is the funniest thing I've read all day... Ahahaha "poncing"

no i understand the post. i've just been very devensive and mean lately. i apologize.

*collects praise, cookies, catloaves, and... bans?*