I had a friend who needed to upgrade his math in order to qualify for a particular college program and asked me to tutor him. Ultimately didn't take very long b

I had a friend who needed to upgrade his math in order to qualify for a particular college program and asked me to tutor him. Ultimately didn't take very long because he showed me a sheet of problems he was working on and I noticed right away that he was writing our all of his equations horizontally (ex. 1 + x = y = x = y - 1) like one would write a sentence. All I had to do to significantly increase his grade was show him how to work through equations vertically. When I asked why none of his teachers berated him for this he said he just did it like he was taught. Afterwards I phoned my mother and told her she was definitely correct in her assessment that the Catholic school I was sent to provided a much higher quality education than the public schools in the area.