What's one thing you never understood in school?
- Thread starter Saucycarpdog
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I'm somewhat confused about the fact that this is a gaming/nerd site and most people are answering with science/maths subjects... We're supposed to ace those
Anyway, for me it was languages (French, German, Latin and Greek), memorise shitloads of vocabulary and grammar, followed by the teachers getting mad because I got good enough grades in English so I probably just wasn't trying hard enough in the other ones...
Anyway, for me it was languages (French, German, Latin and Greek), memorise shitloads of vocabulary and grammar, followed by the teachers getting mad because I got good enough grades in English so I probably just wasn't trying hard enough in the other ones...
Looking back I can't really remember anything I straight up didn't understand out of the study material, but I did have trouble understanding the need of subjects like literature, especially the mandatory reading part, god I hate that. I mean, reading is something I enjoy as a passtime but when you're forced to read something, especially if it's some boring ass psuedo-literary piece of soviet propaganda, man does it make me mad and confused. And then these people go on to say how the modern generation doesn't like reading. Well yeah, I'm pretty sure if I was made to play games for most part of my school years, then had to "analyse" them, more often then not using the exact same words of a dead critic, yeah, I bet I wouldn't be playing games for fun right now. Needless to say I finished school with the minimal passing grade in literature.
Im not that old, plus I was/am very bitter. Statistically less than 5% of people will continue a sport after school that requires more than 4 people to play. Yet all you do in school is massive team sports.JackWestJr said:
As for remembering, yeah, bitter as hell. Always forced to do shit I don't want to with teacher who wanted the first set but got lumped with 3rd set. We were treated 2nd class, we got whatever space wasnt taken by the 1st and 2nd sets, its one of the reason we only got to do badminton once, other sets got first dibs on the hall and even when we got to do the small team sports a small minority got to share loads of courts while the rest of us were shoved onto one without the teacher doing anything.
It's not like almost every advance in science uses algebra/calculus to a large extent or anything, or that we wouldn't have any engineering/technology without advanced maths, if you didn't get told what algebra was useful for, then your teacher failed you, almost every aspect of our day to day life has maths and science unseen in the background somewhere, it's just well hidden so that none of the general public has to bother with it.Ix Rebound said:
French, the whole damn language is beyond my understanding.
I did French for 5 years at school and all I remember now is the sodding alphabet. How is that any use!? I can't exactly go up to a bar in Paris and recite the alphabet hoping for a beer. I couldn't even grasp basic elements of sentence structure or pronunciation, I really was that useless.
On a sidenote German confuses me even more. I have more luck with Chinese and Japanese than I do with German or French.
I did French for 5 years at school and all I remember now is the sodding alphabet. How is that any use!? I can't exactly go up to a bar in Paris and recite the alphabet hoping for a beer. I couldn't even grasp basic elements of sentence structure or pronunciation, I really was that useless.
On a sidenote German confuses me even more. I have more luck with Chinese and Japanese than I do with German or French.
how bad the ict gcse is 
and English literature, just two nonsensical links to show something that isn't there just really doesn't work well with me, also i have to take it and get bad grades in it although im never taking it again
and English literature, just two nonsensical links to show something that isn't there just really doesn't work well with me, also i have to take it and get bad grades in it although im never taking it again
Why, in English, I needed to make up bullshit analyses of plays or scripts or stuff instead on focusing on how good I am at the actual language.
I'm good at maths, but pretty awful at division. Other than dividing by 2 or 10, I can't do it in my head. Other than those I don't think I ever had much trouble with understanding stuff.
I'm good at maths, but pretty awful at division. Other than dividing by 2 or 10, I can't do it in my head. Other than those I don't think I ever had much trouble with understanding stuff.
You haven't done any programming, have you?Ix Rebound said:
Most programming languages look a lot like algebra for a good reason: it makes them easier to use. If you think making a programming language more like English would make it easier to use, I'm afraid that's not the case. COBOL is widely hated because its verbose English-like syntax is extremely cumbersome to use. The most popular languages tend to be ones which are highly efficient in that they minimise the number of keystrokes you need to write something functional.
I'm not even sure what you mean. Surely you played something musical in those years.Kaleion said:
Not busting your chops, mind. I really don't get it.
Anyway, second-tier algebra. I got through my first semester of it fine. I'm pretty good at math in general. And this is the only high school course I failed. Ever.
Social studies, memorizing floods of dates and times. Names and numbers. Thats why we have books. We should remember the mistakes and successes someone made in the past to better ourselves in the future. Not what some guy did in 1873 in England.
Despite loving it, science. Why do we need to learn about all that scientific stuff? Sure it will be handy for doctors and future scientists but other than that it's pretty much useless.
There are parts of science I never "got" like balancing ... something, I remember sitting in science class and having absolutely no clue what the fuck was going on. I just doodled and pretended to work, it went right over my head.
English, I was never taught all the basic stuff in primary school and never really caught up. I also didn't get why we had to read Shakespare, sure the guy wrote some stuff but nobody can understand the fucker these days! It might have been good at one point but now it's an alien language.
There are some things I just find puzzling about it, a person isn't hung, there hanged. Why do have words such as pronoun? Isn't noun enough? Why is "5 items or less" wrong but "5 items or fewer" is correct? What really is the difference between partisan and none partisan? Does it matter THAT much?
Maths, I never even took trigonometry or calculus but I still suck at it. Same thing with English, I was never taught the basic stuff and never caught up ... by basics I mean I was never taught the times tables, unless it's 1,2,4 or 5 I am fucked. Prime numbers, squares, square roots etc are all way over my head.
Not to mention the sillier shapes or "sub shapes" (as I like to call them), "whats got 3 sides" ... "the 15 different triangles!", seriously if it's got 3 sides it's a triangle, nothing more or less. There is no such thing as an isosceles triangle! By sillier shapes I mean shit like rhombus and parallelogram .... Notice how there not like a parallel square or isosceles square!
I didn't like the fluff subjects either, those there so English and Math isn't 4 hours a day. Things like History (or just WW1 and WW2), geography, Religious education/studies etc. If I wanted to study religion I would go to church, if I wanted to study the other two I would go on a college course.
That's it for me!
There are parts of science I never "got" like balancing ... something, I remember sitting in science class and having absolutely no clue what the fuck was going on. I just doodled and pretended to work, it went right over my head.
English, I was never taught all the basic stuff in primary school and never really caught up. I also didn't get why we had to read Shakespare, sure the guy wrote some stuff but nobody can understand the fucker these days! It might have been good at one point but now it's an alien language.
There are some things I just find puzzling about it, a person isn't hung, there hanged. Why do have words such as pronoun? Isn't noun enough? Why is "5 items or less" wrong but "5 items or fewer" is correct? What really is the difference between partisan and none partisan? Does it matter THAT much?
Maths, I never even took trigonometry or calculus but I still suck at it. Same thing with English, I was never taught the basic stuff and never caught up ... by basics I mean I was never taught the times tables, unless it's 1,2,4 or 5 I am fucked. Prime numbers, squares, square roots etc are all way over my head.
Not to mention the sillier shapes or "sub shapes" (as I like to call them), "whats got 3 sides" ... "the 15 different triangles!", seriously if it's got 3 sides it's a triangle, nothing more or less. There is no such thing as an isosceles triangle! By sillier shapes I mean shit like rhombus and parallelogram .... Notice how there not like a parallel square or isosceles square!
I didn't like the fluff subjects either, those there so English and Math isn't 4 hours a day. Things like History (or just WW1 and WW2), geography, Religious education/studies etc. If I wanted to study religion I would go to church, if I wanted to study the other two I would go on a college course.
That's it for me!
Engineering graphs and design. Ask me to solve an equation? No problem. Want me to tell you how many radicals 90 degrees is? Child's play. Want me to take a ruler and pencil to draw what you are merely describing with words accurately, neatly and correctly? AAAAAAAAAAAAW HELL NAW!
Also, creative writing and comprehension in a little Dutch-related language known as AFRIKAANS, which is dying anyway since NO ONE NEEDS IT. Any person who knows Afrikaans has a 99.999999% chance of knowing English anyway.
Also, creative writing and comprehension in a little Dutch-related language known as AFRIKAANS, which is dying anyway since NO ONE NEEDS IT. Any person who knows Afrikaans has a 99.999999% chance of knowing English anyway.