Memes - I am:

[jack]

According to internet tests:

I am: Tungsten.
I am: 24 years old.
I nitpick: 8th grade maths tests

Tungsten has a cool symbol ("W"). 24 is fairly close. But can I stay 23/24 please? And I did make a couple of errors on the maths test, first by working out 5x6 and forgetting which was in the question and which was the answer, and secondly, by forgetting all my GRF and not thinking -7 could be prime (though in context that would not be the correct answer).

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

What age is 8th grade?

If you're tungsten, does that mean you're going to burn out after being turned on too many times?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

What age is 8th grade?

No idea. But some point at school around about the time of elementary algebra and comparison.

If you're tungsten, does that mean you're going to burn out after being turned on too many times?

Well, that would be de rigueur[1] for men, wouldn't it?

[1] Pun intended.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

What age is 8th grade?

No idea. But some point at school around about the time of elementary algebra and comparison.

angelofthenorth reckoned it was about age 15, but I thought their grades were not so far removed from our years as that implies given that age 15 would be year 10 and year 8 is 12/13. But I've never got the American system. I might be being confused by the Australian system as seen on Neighbours when I thought it was basically the same as our years.

[icantcarenemore.livejournal.com]

I'm almost certain 1st grade is equivalent to year 1, 2nd grade to year 2 and so on. This comes from years of online communication with American schoolgoers.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I had enough trouble remembering the "year n" system, because neither of my schools used them. But in year 7, I had a history text book saying "PAST: Y7" which Dad was convinced referred to a group of 7 people from Pasty :) so I always work it out relative to that :)

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

GRF?

[mair_in_grenderich]

/me is guessing somethign like groups rings and fields.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"Groups, Rings and Fields" Aaaaaagh! Do not speak its name again, for it summons... the NISB[1]! There's always some sort of group and ring and field courses in the maths tripos, that always has one that is incomprehensible for no reason[2].

[1] Nick Shepherd-Baron, the lecturer in my year.

[2] And I can't remember how much maths you know, so I'll mention rings are things like "multiplication on units digits only" (<--simplification), and have therefore a slightly more general concept of "things that can be multiplied together to make things" called primes which in the integers, corresponds to include the -primes.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

Aaah by forgetting all my GRF and not thinking -7 could be prime was one thing, not two as I initially thought. I thought therefore it referred to a different question and wondered what this thing I didn't know about was relevant to questions which I could do (with the except of being told I was wrong that -7 a whole number !

(Maths -- I got an A* at GCSE without doing any homework really throughout GCSE (except when I was enjoying a bit and wanted to do more) and then ditched it because I'd hated the tendency of the course to make maths `relevant' (in higly artifical ways) and the maths/further maths A Levels my brother did were the next stage of the same course (SMP 16-18 not SMP 11-16) and had the same flaw. I was also bored by it (and thought stats and probability foul) and was trying to avoid having to compete with my brother who was off to Uni to read maths (although not Cambridge as he hadn't got in).* There were also at least 4 other subjects I wanted to do and I decided while my brother was applying to Uni that ASNC and Celtic Studies was what I wanted to do so English, History, Spanish and RS Philosophy and Ethics were a better subject combination. Ok, so Philosophy and Ethics isn't particularly but that was my favourite course and given my long term thoughts then are what they are now, a sensible one (though doing the full RS A Level might have been better)** Mmm, I think that's my most honest answer to the why didn't you do maths A level I've given. I did in fact come close to dropping Spanish for Maths within a few weeks of starting, but there wasn't a Maths class in the block Spanish was and I was doing something in all the other blocks so it wasn't possible (so I didn't tell anyone) and actually Spanish improved with perseverence, it was just a big leap from GCSE to A level and the others had been better taught at GCSE.***

*Not helped by the fact KGV didn't encourage the taking of STEP papers which limited his choice of colleges somewhat (although less so than now as Churchill (where he applied) now requires them I believe)

**But I was discouraged from doing 4 arts A levels

***Interestingly, at the start of the A level course there were 3 or possibly even 4 of us who'd only done one language at GCSE. I was the only one of us to complete the A level. The reason I hadn't done 2 was the poor teaching I'd received in French and the fact I didn't have enough space for French (I was already faced with a Geography/Music conflict in the free option) not because I struggled with it.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Everywhere except Kings requires step for maths now.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

I've a feeling it was Kings or Churchill in his day (this would have been Sept/Oct 1994 that he was applying)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Churchill didn't want STEP from me (1992 entry). I don't know anything about later policy changes though.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

That makes sense as my brother would have been 1995 entry and Churchill still did not require them then. I wonder when they came in. Was atreic's comment based on the situation when she arrived (2000 entry -- I think)?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

It's nearly me in reverse: I didn't do any arts subjects, so now am picking up grammar, linguistics, philosophy, etc in dribs and drabs here and there. I don't exactly regret, because I wouldn't have got any benefit from them *then* but it would be nice if I had been less polarised.

*shrug* There's no point second guessing. We can pick these things up.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

It is a shame we have to polarise. I remember a conversation during sixth form with a friend who went on to do biochemistry in the other place where we comment we could quite easily have done the others' subjects (with French for Spanish as she'd gone that way for GCSE). I think she did Biology Chemistry and Maths and Geology (or three of those four; did she do Maths?). Oddly of the three from my school (as opposed to sixth form college) who applied to Oxbridge she was the one who got in. I always suspected that this was not what the teachers would have predicted.