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My theory is that math anxiety is really anxiety about a cold assessment. In other subjects you can rationalize to yourself in various ways: the teacher doesn'

My theory is that math anxiety is really anxiety about a cold assessment. In other subjects you can rationalize to yourself in various ways: the teacher doesn't like me, or I got unlucky and they only asked the history questions I didn't know. But with math, no rationalization is possible. There's no hope the teacher will go easy on you, or be happy that you got the gist of the solution. Failure in math is often (but not always) a sign that education has failed in general. Teachers can be lazy or too nice and give good grades in art or history or reading to any student. But when the standardized math test comes around, there's no hiding from it (teacher or student).

mbizzle88 9y ago
Marking a math test is only objective when an answer is entirely correct. What mark do you give a student who makes a minor arithmetic error on a single step of a multi-step problem?
- chrisdbaldwin 9y ago
  0 pts - space shuttle exploded.
- jeffdavis 9y ago
  Objective tests for math ability are pretty good. Arguing that they are only 99% objective doesn't really change my point. People aren't afraid of making tiny mistakes. They are afraid of looking at a problem similar to a dozen they saw in lecture; and having no idea what to do, and then being told under no incertain terms that they did not succeed.
findoer 9y ago
Funnily enough, this goes away to some as you move along. Say I'm taking an exam and don't know how to do a proof. I pray and think that some equation is important, so I write it down with a little context. If I've done a great job up to that point, my professor will be more likely to think that I hit upon the key idea and give me 3/4 credit. If not, I'm probably more likely to just be marked wrong. You can also lose points for stylistic reasons if your professor is opinionated about them (-1 with "it is clear that" underlined and "don't write this ever again" in red ink :) ). Some professors will fail you if you get too technically correct with logical symbols everywhere instead of writing mathematical English. If you show too many steps you're wasting everyone's time; if you don't show enough or you don't seem confident you might get marked down. Etc

mbizzle88 9y ago

Marking a math test is only objective when an answer is entirely correct. What mark do you give a student who makes a minor arithmetic error on a single step of a multi-step problem?

chrisdbaldwin 9y ago
0 pts - space shuttle exploded.
jeffdavis 9y ago
Objective tests for math ability are pretty good. Arguing that they are only 99% objective doesn't really change my point. People aren't afraid of making tiny mistakes. They are afraid of looking at a problem similar to a dozen they saw in lecture; and having no idea what to do, and then being told under no incertain terms that they did not succeed.

findoer 9y ago

Funnily enough, this goes away to some as you move along. Say I'm taking an exam and don't know how to do a proof. I pray and think that some equation is important, so I write it down with a little context. If I've done a great job up to that point, my professor will be more likely to think that I hit upon the key idea and give me 3/4 credit. If not, I'm probably more likely to just be marked wrong. You can also lose points for stylistic reasons if your professor is opinionated about them (-1 with "it is clear that" underlined and "don't write this ever again" in red ink :) ). Some professors will fail you if you get too technically correct with logical symbols everywhere instead of writing mathematical English. If you show too many steps you're wasting everyone's time; if you don't show enough or you don't seem confident you might get marked down. Etc