I had a chem class where the beginning of the first test was incredibly hard (or, really, time-consuming - hard for the time allowed for the test). I’d glanced at the test and started at the easier end and ended up with a 75. Avg was something like 25. The prof doubled everyone’s score, so I started out the semester with 150/100.
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That was my experience in Discrete Mathematics. It was not unusual for me to get a 99% or 100% on the test and the second-highest score would be in the 50s. That was a professor I asked to write a letter of recommendation!
My Abstract Algebra class there was another guy who would typically get a 95%, I’d typically get an 85% and everyone else would be in the 40s or below. We’d study together sometimes and we called ourselves Team Minority: he was African-American, I was a woman, the entire rest of the class was white men.
My multi-variable calculus class on the other hand … did not go so well. I ended up retaking it after graduation at a community college and acing it, but I barely passed it in college. I was not meant to take that course that early in the day from that professor. Bad combo.
The people who were in both my Calc class and then either my Discrete or Abstract class could not believe my turnaround. 
The math department where I got my PhD had a system of qualifying exams for its PhD candidates - you had to pass a certain number of qualifying exams by the end of two years or you were out. (A fairly common system, though the exams go by different names in different schools.). There were classes attached to each exam that ostensibly prepared you for that exam (though you don’t have to take the class to take the qual). The grading system for those classes boiled down to
- A = The professor thinks you’re going to pass the exam
- B = The professor thinks you’re going to fail the exam, but you might pass if you put in more effort
- C = The professor thinks you should reassess your career choices
Was always awkward for folks to explain to others outside the department that they were getting a solid B/B+ average but still had a decent chance of being kicked out of the university.
I bought a cheap crochet hook kit for my son a while ago, he didn’t like crocheting, so it’s been sitting around. I am making some silly crochet things tonight and grabbed the kit for the hook, as my good supplies are stored away in the basement. There is also a measuring tape in the kit. The pattern I am following says to make something until it’s 5 inches long. I kept thinking that it looked way longer than 5 inches, but it supposedly wasn’t according to the tape.
I looked a little more closely at the tape, and…I don’t know what’s going on here. My correct imperial measuring tape is on top, the one in the kit is on the bottom. Each real inch = 1.25 units on the bottom tape, and there are 10 ticks per unit. Is this a Chinese thing, or is it just wrong?
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I had to deal with the DMV today.
My driver’s license was up for renewal, so I decided to use the opportunity to get a real id. I went to their website, and followed the process. I uploaded two documents showing my address: my utility bill and my wireless bill. Both are paperless, so I just downloaded the bill as a pdf and uploaded it. I then scheduled an early appointment and brought in my renewal notice and my passport.
When I went to check in, the woman asked for my proof of address. I told her I uploaded them to their system. She said they still need a physical copy. I told her I do not get a physical copy, I have paperless billing. She says that is ok, but they need a physical copy to verify. They did not have a printer I could use. I had to go home and print out the pdf they already have so they could glance at it and say yes it matches what I had uploaded.
The line was much longer by the time I got back, so this cost me 90 minutes I would guess.
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That is just weird. I was trying to come up with some other units it could be and got nothing.
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Lol. I had to look it up. Now I’ll be ready for this one on redactle.
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No clue, it’s clearly not metric. And it doesn’t measure sevenths of an inch.
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Fascinating! The rest of the kit is in English, including the sizes of the needles, so this is a bit surprising, and I had never heard of this. Glad I figured out it wasn’t inches, haha.
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I could pull the bottom one out when my wife says she thinks my stomach is getting bigger.
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5 cms
It reached 71 degrees here today. Not normally an annoyed thought, but that’s another orange hexagon in my temperature quilt which looks so jarring!
Beautiful day, though. I got to take a walk around the block in the sun, which is the third time I’ve gotten outside since my surgery.
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My son just made a mac and cheese cup int he microwave and forgot to add water…worse than burnt popcorn in case you were wondering what kind of odor that creates…
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My quilt kit is missing a piece this month, so I couldn’t finish my project. This is the first time that has happened, in 17 months, so that’s not so bad. I hope they respond promptly.
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this is another reason why I liked physics better than math, in physics it was easier to work through the substitutions to get a thing that was consistent at the end with your typos, whereas in math if you drop a factor out of the proof you just end up royally screwed.
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The dog and I have very different opinions on whether now is a great time to play in the backyard. I feel like a jerk but no.
I do recall one problem we (“partner groups”) were working through in physics. We didn’t really know what the equation was, but we did know what the ending units were supposed to be, so just multiplied by whatever we needed to in order to get things to cancel properly.
If memory serves me correctly, which it usually does not, we got the right answer.
Yeah, we learned about a boatload of dimensionless groups in the engineering curriculum and you got the idea pretty fast that things canceling out could often be pretty meaningful. Reynolds # was the first you heard, but it was followed by Prandtl, Peclet, Nusselt, Euler, etc.
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I’ve used that strategy more than once.
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Yeah, I found high school physics easy for that reason.
I had a hard time with chemistry though and carefully avoided it in college. Everyone wanted me in their lab group in high school chemistry because I would always check to make sure that the equations were properly balanced at the end (something a lot of groups that didn’t include me would lose points over). If I was in your lab group, no way were we losing points for having unbalanced equations.
Balancing equations is easy.
But if you start with compounds AB and CD… are you going to end up with AC and BD or AD and BC or ACD and B or A and BCD or… ???
I never understood that piece. Still don’t.