In article <OzBmq.173781$
ba5.1...@unlimited.newshosting.com>,
Well.... I think we all have our problems with math or other
subjects. Arithmetic was always my bugbear, and I never got any
further than Algebra 1 (geometry was ok; no numbers).
Now I'm going to talk about my Physics final: if you've seen it
already, hit 'n' now.
The College of Letters and Sciences had these damn breadth
requirements. People majoring in what my husband the engineer
calls "fuzzy studies" still had to take a certain number of
science courses. I had already done a year of biology, but no,
they wanted a semester of physics too, and they had a course that
they called "Physics for Non-Majors" and everybody else called
"Bonehead Physics."
It chanced that another young woman living in the same rooming
house with me was taking the same section of B.P. that I was: the
same (boring) professor giving the lectures, the same (inept)
T.A. assigning and collecting homework. So my housemate and I
would sit in the kitchen every Wednesday night doing our
homework: she knew how to use a slide rule and I did not. (No
calculators in 1961). So we split the work: I'd set up the
equations, and she'd do the arithmetic and we'd both turn in the
same answers.
Midterm: fairly short and manageable. Then came the final: two
solid hours of sitting in a huge hall solving physics problems.
Without my housemate and her slide rule, I had to do the
arithmetic by sweat and scratch paper, and I knew I wouldn't be
able to get it all done. But I thought, This is a course in
physics, not arithmetic or even algebra. I'll set up all the
equations and then go back and solve as many as I have time for.
Came the final grades. I got an A; my housemate got a C.