Quote:
Originally Posted by northwind
But there's a balance to be struck. Spending months learning times tables by rote isn't too clever either IMO.
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Right. I mean, I am not a particularly stupid person, I am working in a pretty serious lab as their ("lead" apparently) scientific programmer, and contract out to banks and other people. But, I cannot remember the order of numbers. I just can't.
I could never get the tables until I found the patterns in the numbers, and I did maths (even a primary degree in it) in a way that was different to everyone else it seems.
Like northy was saying, I can understand the idea of a concept and then estimate within that range. What I cant estimate, I can brute force with some calculator work, do some estimation, and then work towards an answer. For me, it works, I got a 1.0 in maths.
I suppose it would be nice to be able to learn things by rote, and be able to look up the number 354 in an index and actually go to that page rather than going to 345, but I survive.