40% of College Students get this question wrong. AND IT MAKES ME ANGRY!

Ocelano

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Apr 14, 2009
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buggy65 said:
College is supposed to be a place of higher learning. To get into college you must also pass high school and a number of exams. Yet, based on a recent campus wide survey conducted at my school 40% of college students cannot FOIL. I am a math major and this saddens and angers me. So Escapist, I ask you:

FOIL: (x+3)^2
EDIT: FOIL also means Expand...

Please put your answers in spoiler tags so people can't cheat without actively looking. To do a spoiler tag you place [mathspoiler]{content}[/mathspoiler] but remove the "math" part.

Remember, 40 freakin' percent fail at this. Try not to be one of them.

The correct answer is
{x^2+6x+9}
Please tell e that they had no working out space because even if they couldn't remember the basic
(ax+b)^2= a^2x^2+2abx+b^2
formula they should of just been able to work it out manually. shouldn't they? I mean there really is no excuse with their assumed educational levels. That said I was pretty good with algebra but sucked at geometry so would be hard pressed to remember some of the old area formulae
 

Namewithheld

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Apr 30, 2008
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I'm sorry, I don't remember how to FOIL. I remember what it was.

But, my question is...do you know how to evoke the emotions of a losing a loved one?

How about construct a believable fantasy world?

Design a logical system of government for a transhuman society?

Show someone's inner soul with a few sentences?

Capture the essence of combat to make thrilling and easily followed prose?

Force yourself to cut some of your favorite words because they don't actually contribute to the plot or to the character?

I could go on, and while I may not know algebra for shit, don't you dare and say I don't know my CHOSEN craft because, to quote one of my favorite video game studios...I build worlds.
 

antigodoflife

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Nov 12, 2009
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Agayek said:
Well, I wasn't sure what FOIL means, as I usually refer to it as "expanding" or some variation thereof, but I did know the answer.

Edit: Also, there are a lot of people who study fake majors (like Art, Music, etc), and they don't tend, or need, much in the way of math classes so it's somewhat understandable. Depressing, but understandable.
Fake... teh fuck mate. Arts is as real as any other profession, if not more important as your work lives on. Music incorporates quite a lot of maths, especially if it's your major. Expressionism travels on to all levels of work, keep your biased beliefs to yourself.
 

Fire Daemon

Quoth the Daemon
Dec 18, 2007
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Craftybonds said:
Even so, almost every major that i can think of requires Algebra I at minimum.
If thats the case than it seems that colleges in America are incredibly limited. Do colleges not deal with the less heavy number subjects such as Language courses, philosophy, history etc? Why would such course need Algebra anyway?
 

FallenJellyDoughnut

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Jun 28, 2009
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NimbleJack3 said:
It's taught in 8-10th grade in Australia. We know it as expanding and simplifying. Does foil stand for something?
This, I'm in 10th grade and expanding and simplifying is pretty much the only think I got right in Algebra. You Americans and your edumacation.
 

floppylobster

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Oct 22, 2008
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buggy65 said:
This is Algebra I stuff. It is taught in High School!
High School is not the place to be doing Algebra.

Can't do it, but I do know where and how to look it up, and/or who to ask to solve it for me (and I could do it if I was reminded how to do it), but I struggle with the motivation of why I should do it, as it will not save my life, or give me any perceivable benefit in this situation. And, unfortunately, that?s all it takes to get through life.
 

Flames66

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Aug 22, 2009
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What? Why would I need to be able to do that? I never use that kind of maths in my daily life. This is the problem with "Higher Education", there is too much focus on useless theoretical knowledge and not enough on teaching useful skills.
 

SimuLord

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Aug 20, 2008
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College? For fucksakes, anyone who's passed the eighth grade should be able to square a linear equation, whether you call it "FOIL"ing or just "square this quantity"! That's basic algebra right there!

x^2+6x+9.

Once again. College my ass. I could do this at age 12 and haven't lost the ability to do it in the 20 years since.
 

Fostaar

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Jun 11, 2009
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if this study was conducted on people walking round campus between classes then they probably didnt care enough to give it the 2 mins thought it requires. who wants to be stopped by a stranger and asked to do maths problems. i wouldnt be very enthusiastic or receptive to this
 

Mydnyght

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Feb 17, 2010
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(*facepalms at all those college students who fail at that question*)

Okay, here we go:

FOIL = First, Outer, Inner, Last
(x+3)^2 --> (x+3)(x+3)
First: x * x = x^2
Outer: x * 3 = 3x
Inner: 3 * x = 3x
Last: 3 * 3 = 9
Add them all together: x^2 + 3x + 3x + 9

THE ANSWER:
x^2 + 6x + 9

That wasn't so bad, was it?
 

Fire Daemon

Quoth the Daemon
Dec 18, 2007
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FallenJellyDoughnut said:
NimbleJack3 said:
It's taught in 8-10th grade in Australia. We know it as expanding and simplifying. Does foil stand for something?
This, I'm in 10th grade and expanding and simplifying is pretty much the only think I got right in Algebra. You Americans and your edumacation.
As far as I believe, different teaches teach it in different ways. I'm Australian myself and while I also know FOIL as expanding and simplifying I was taught FOIL in year 9 as an easier way to remember the process. It seems strange that they would say 'use Process X on this problem', it feels kind of dumbed down in that you only need to know how to use a process and brainlessly, you don't need to recognise what the question is asking you to do. Kind of feels like half a question to me. I'd wager that plenty of American students know how to answer "Use foil to find (x+6)^2" but more will have trouble with "when a number is added with six and that sum is put to the power two what would be the total amount?". I mean, I could be wrong, but if students are told how to answer the question in the question than I would think there would be difficulties when they are not given a way of answering the question.

Good luck on the School Certificate by the way. If you plan on going onto the HSC than your mark doesn't count for jack. Maybe your school will give mark cut offs for certain subjects but mine didn't and I haven't heard of any that have so don't worry too much about it.

My Question

(x+6)^2
=(x+6)(x+6)
=x^2+12x+36

OPs Question

(x+3)^2
=(x+3)(x+3)
=x^2+6x+9

EDIT: Ya know, without a link to any sort of study or results I'm finding it a little bit hard to believe the OP. I'm not surprised that a large amount of people are ignorant in the ways of algebra but I still wont believe that an amount (in this case around 40%) of people don't know something unless there is evidence to back it up, even if I put my guess at a larger amount.
 

psychic psycho

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Dec 17, 2009
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That was incredibly easy. I remember doing that kind of stuff in middle school, as early as seventh grade I think. It's pretty disturbing that 40% of College Students get it wrong. It's simple algebra.
 

Hamster at Dawn

It's Hazard Time!
Mar 19, 2008
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Lol, in the UK, I covered this when I was about 12. How can so many people get that wrong? I don't buy that they simply can't remember how to do that stuff. Give me the same question in 50 years and I bet you £1000 I'll still get it right.
 

wooty

Vi Britannia
Aug 1, 2009
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Maths was never my strong point and I've forgotten most of it. Not had to use high school maths in near 6 years now, its all vansihed for me