board77

Yeah, but Dave LF gets asked to compose a lengthy melodious sonnet set to a marginally hummable tune capable of being sung by flaming tongues by the same standard...

whereas someone like I will get asked to swab down nasty bathrooms and clean and organize several shelves and closets and inventory their contents, including all of my paperwork on Earth for the last ten years.

It is all relative.

:D

(PS - mathematics is easy, you just need to stop freezing in fear and treat it like a game or puzzle, it becomes much more easy to comprehend then, just break it down and think about it for a bit. Well, you can tell I am a math geek, so I will shut up. )

Feh....I'm a right-brain person.

The Watcher wrote:

(PS - mathematics is easy, you just need to stop freezing in fear and treat it like a game or puzzle, it becomes much more easy to comprehend then, just break it down and think about it for a bit. Well, you can tell I am a math geek, so I will shut up. )

I think it's partly a school thing. Like right now, I'm reading about the French Revolution, and that should be very exciting, but I haven't kept at it for long, and I'm reeeeally sick and tired already. Games and puzzles are fun. But not when you may end up failing an exam if you can't solve them.

Wish I could help but you know me

Nasssty mathssss

Well, all's good for now. Homework done for class tomorrow.

Shortened week from MLK day yesteday.

Started my day with coffee today and I'm feeling pretty good.

Okay, help me with this one. I got it wrong on my quiz, which I was oh so pleased to discover was all math (not concept questions, mind you--all the book gave us). Nooooo, these two quizzes were just frickin' math quizzes. With no warning. Okay, so you understand my shock and frustration (and subsequent panic) when I saw what I'd have to do.

(In any case, I missed one question on each, which is not the end of the world.)

Tell me this one:

The relationship between the factors is 2:3.

2x = 3y
2x * 3x = y

(I can't remember the other choices.)


I chose the first; it says the second is correct with an explanation of, "x would represent the factor."

I'm afraid I've lost whatever neurons I originally had dedicated to this crap.

The answer is




42


ducks and runs

Suppose you have two Lego bricks, the first with two nubs and the other with three nubs. The ration of the nubs is 2:3

You need three of the first (x) to get six nubs. You only need two of the second (y).

So the answer is 3x = 2y.

The answer it most emphatically isn't is 2x * 3x = y.

It is a slightly ambiguous question, mainly because of the word 'factor'. The factors that make up bread for example might be "2 parts water to 3 parts flour", in which case you add the two together and their ratio is 2:3. If that is the case, then 2x = 3y (or 3x = 2y, since x and y are undefined). Soggy bread, I grant you, but you get my point.

However, strictly in mathematics which I guess is the purpose of the test, a factor is a number that divides into another. So 24 could be factored into 2 *12, 3*8, 4*6, 2*3*4, 2*2*6 or 2*2*2*3. Most important of these is 4*6, where the ratio of the factors is 2:3.

So strictly speaking your teacher is right. 2x * 3x = y. (Put x = 2 to get 4*6 = 24).

We all focused on the word ratio and ignored the word factor.

Well, thank you. I had decided not to pursue it any further in any case. (No sense in making the prof mad.) But, definitely, thank you for taking the time to answer it. And, obviously, it can be explained well via "email" since I can understand what you've typed above.

(I'm thinking that the prof's excuse of this being hard to explain via email translates to "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about." )

And on a related note: being good at maths is linked to getting rich!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/1011 ... alth_study

Lidless, you'd make a wonderful math teacher! *

* (If you ever want to give up the high-powered corporate world and take a drastic cut in income... )