AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Discrete mathematics: lectures super easy. "Practice" sheets: first half: okay I can do this, other half: what the hell I've never seen this before, that wasn't even mentioned with one word during lectures.

My favourite maths in school was probability.

Oh dang, I've been looking into discrete mathematics as a thing to study.
What sort of unseen stuff was it?

Today? Calculating the greatest common divisor of 2 really big numbers and writing it down as a linear combination. The only time the greatest common divisor was even mentioned at all was as an example for a half sorted set. It's the Infimum of two numbers in a half sorted set over divisors. In other words... it was a completely different context than what they want from us now suddenly and I have no idea how to actually calculate the gcd or how to write it down as linear combination.
And that happens every week. We get a practice sheet and there is at least 1 task where you're like "what the hell do you want from me and what does it have to do with the rest of the stuff we had last week?"

Are you allowed to use a programmable calculator or math program to solve that?

Sometimes I wonder if the writers of my Math textbook have fun putting in exercises like (a^2+4^b)*(2b+a)*(a-2b)*(16b^4+a^4) knowing that they are a pain in the booty to solve

Lolnope. Not in the exam. Sheet of paper and a pen.
TRULY YOU CAN SEE THE HIGH TECH IT STUDENTS DEAL WITH.

Yeah but you guys are German
you have mathematical precision in your blood
flowing in neat little 1.000000 liter increments

Screeeewwwwwwww yooooouuuuu.



This is the one I use, we can't use anything more advanced than that, but you're free to use any model you want to, as long as it is non-symbolic, non-graphic and non-programmable.

Does your school hate technology and progress? We actively use the different functions the calculator has during class, they're really helpful

No, they're just a bunch of hardasses.

continuation school is great.

We can use any notes, calculators, homework or school work, bodaciously everything but the book. If we want to write down EXACTLY how to do specific equations, that's allowed to use on the test. Just not the book, because you have to put work into it, and writing notes at least means you have a better understanding in general.

Math is so much more fun thanks to that.

Who wants to be my 'do everything in your head' bro? No one?

Me. I do this to a painful degree, probably because I'm stubborn.

Even so, I do it faster than other people can on a calculator, though I'd do it much faster if I were using a calculator. *used to be on the Calculator UIL team in middle school*

Also, today I had to remember to calculate the height of an equilateral triangle.

You could hear those rusty cogs squeaking. It's been years.

cut it in half along the height so you have a right angle and calculate sqrt(a^2-(a/2)^2) . That's how I do it.