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AP stat/ AP Chem/ AP Phys etc are about math formulae and explaining the calculation. I do not want my kids to learn TeX or figure out word formula editor just

by vaidhy 6y ago

AP stat/ AP Chem/ AP Phys etc are about math formulae and explaining the calculation. I do not want my kids to learn TeX or figure out word formula editor just before the AP exams.

Mirioron 6y ago
This brings up an interesting point: how come math input is so difficult on a computer? Even TeX seems like an awful solution for this.
- gowld 6y ago
  Ask a Chinese or Japanese friend why typing is hard.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    It's not though. You just type out the pronunciation and pick from a list if there are multiple. I'm actually surprised we don't have something like that for standard math input.
  - Jach 6y ago
    Chinese friend: "If you use pinyin not at all. There are other ways such as stroke based, I have never learned it." This matches my prediction. Typing Japanese isn't hard either (and I'm just a beginning learner) -- typing ha in JP mode gives は, or if you're only in JP mode the typical layout assigns that to qwerty 'f'. Like Chinese, IME drop-down selection works well for kanji.
- Jach 6y ago
  It's not though? $x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$. If you have a visualizer hooked up while you're typing, even easier. And then there's Mathematica.
  - ativzzz 6y ago
    I mean you essentially need to learn a pseudo language on top of math to be able to do that. The barrier to entry compared to writing pen and paper is much higher, and math is hard enough for a vast number of Americans.
    - Jach 6y ago
      The context here isn't the average American, but a high school student taking an AP test involving writing math -- where scoring well counts for the same credit as having passed the equivalent entry level course(s) in college. Besides, math is already pseudo language on top of pseudo language. Learning notation is part of math, I'll concede learning to type an expression on a computer is a different notation than writing it with pen, but if you can't learn that, why learn math? Each domain does its own thing too and isn't even necessarily consistent. Guy Steele gave a great talk a few years ago on "Computer Science Metanotation", and that's just one area of math: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuZkaaou0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuZkaaou0Q (Edit: And to conclude here, learning to read and write with some notation tends to be easy, it's learning what the math actually means that is the hard part.)
      - Mirioron 6y ago
        >but if you can't learn that, why learn math? You can say this, but you won't like the response. The response is probably "okay" and they just won't learn math. I don't think the world is better off when that happens. It's not a question of whether people are capable of doing this, it's a question of whether this is worthwhile.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    What you wrote is almost unreadable to me in the text itself. The only reason I got it is because I recognized the formula from sqrt(b^2 - 4ac). x = (-b +- sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)) / (2a) This, however is somewhat readable. Requiring me to use TeX or Mathematica is what I would consider difficult. Whenever I actually need to write math they won't be available. I'd have more luck using custom emojis as math symbols in most cases.
Jach 6y ago
I would have preferred taking AP stats/physics/CS/Calculus with a computer, and that was over a decade ago. (AP French also used cassette tapes to record yourself with. Looks like they transitioned to the modern digital age in 2017, but I'm sure every year before then they had a sizable number of students with blank tape or broken tape submissions.) I had already taught myself the basic TeX for math formulas before I took any AP test that could have used it, I even set up a PHP portal to do simple chemical equation balancing that would use LaTeX behind the scenes and spit out PNGs. There are nice JS libraries to do everything client-side now, so in any online portal it could be seamlessly mixed in with a reference and live-preview right next to it. All I'm saying is it's really not hard -- you can learn what you need in under an hour -- and if you step back and think about the type of student taking these tests they're also the type of student likely to pursue these subjects in college, so they're likely going to have to learn much more of LaTeX eventually anyway. Where neither plain text nor LaTeX help much is when you really need to draw something out. I'd say mouse drawings are better than nothing, but you can also just remove questions/scoring that rely on display of such. Nothing stops a student from drawing privately on their own paper -- indeed as I recall a lot of the questions from some of those AP tests were exactly like that: do your work on paper you throw out after, because the answer is multiple choice. It's really most surprising that they didn't go with a fully online test (which means no manual submission of purely offline artifacts) and haven't been preparing for such at all over the years...

by vaidhy 6y ago

AP stat/ AP Chem/ AP Phys etc are about math formulae and explaining the calculation. I do not want my kids to learn TeX or figure out word formula editor just before the AP exams.

Mirioron 6y ago

This brings up an interesting point: how come math input is so difficult on a computer? Even TeX seems like an awful solution for this.

gowld 6y ago
Ask a Chinese or Japanese friend why typing is hard.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  It's not though. You just type out the pronunciation and pick from a list if there are multiple. I'm actually surprised we don't have something like that for standard math input.
- Jach 6y ago
  Chinese friend: "If you use pinyin not at all. There are other ways such as stroke based, I have never learned it." This matches my prediction. Typing Japanese isn't hard either (and I'm just a beginning learner) -- typing ha in JP mode gives は, or if you're only in JP mode the typical layout assigns that to qwerty 'f'. Like Chinese, IME drop-down selection works well for kanji.
Jach 6y ago
It's not though? $x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$. If you have a visualizer hooked up while you're typing, even easier. And then there's Mathematica.
- ativzzz 6y ago
  I mean you essentially need to learn a pseudo language on top of math to be able to do that. The barrier to entry compared to writing pen and paper is much higher, and math is hard enough for a vast number of Americans.
  - Jach 6y ago
    The context here isn't the average American, but a high school student taking an AP test involving writing math -- where scoring well counts for the same credit as having passed the equivalent entry level course(s) in college. Besides, math is already pseudo language on top of pseudo language. Learning notation is part of math, I'll concede learning to type an expression on a computer is a different notation than writing it with pen, but if you can't learn that, why learn math? Each domain does its own thing too and isn't even necessarily consistent. Guy Steele gave a great talk a few years ago on "Computer Science Metanotation", and that's just one area of math: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuZkaaou0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuZkaaou0Q (Edit: And to conclude here, learning to read and write with some notation tends to be easy, it's learning what the math actually means that is the hard part.)
    - Mirioron 6y ago
      >but if you can't learn that, why learn math? You can say this, but you won't like the response. The response is probably "okay" and they just won't learn math. I don't think the world is better off when that happens. It's not a question of whether people are capable of doing this, it's a question of whether this is worthwhile.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  What you wrote is almost unreadable to me in the text itself. The only reason I got it is because I recognized the formula from sqrt(b^2 - 4ac). x = (-b +- sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)) / (2a) This, however is somewhat readable. Requiring me to use TeX or Mathematica is what I would consider difficult. Whenever I actually need to write math they won't be available. I'd have more luck using custom emojis as math symbols in most cases.

Jach 6y ago

I would have preferred taking AP stats/physics/CS/Calculus with a computer, and that was over a decade ago. (AP French also used cassette tapes to record yourself with. Looks like they transitioned to the modern digital age in 2017, but I'm sure every year before then they had a sizable number of students with blank tape or broken tape submissions.) I had already taught myself the basic TeX for math formulas before I took any AP test that could have used it, I even set up a PHP portal to do simple chemical equation balancing that would use LaTeX behind the scenes and spit out PNGs. There are nice JS libraries to do everything client-side now, so in any online portal it could be seamlessly mixed in with a reference and live-preview right next to it. All I'm saying is it's really not hard -- you can learn what you need in under an hour -- and if you step back and think about the type of student taking these tests they're also the type of student likely to pursue these subjects in college, so they're likely going to have to learn much more of LaTeX eventually anyway. Where neither plain text nor LaTeX help much is when you really need to draw something out. I'd say mouse drawings are better than nothing, but you can also just remove questions/scoring that rely on display of such. Nothing stops a student from drawing privately on their own paper -- indeed as I recall a lot of the questions from some of those AP tests were exactly like that: do your work on paper you throw out after, because the answer is multiple choice. It's really most surprising that they didn't go with a fully online test (which means no manual submission of purely offline artifacts) and haven't been preparing for such at all over the years...