Posted: Jan 07, 2011 11:52 am
Numbers are my problem. It is numbers which dance around on the page. Sometimes digits will disappear from a sum completely. I can't subtract worth a damn if one of the digits I'm trying to subtract is higher - eg 345-159 - without a hell of a lot of time or effort. Mental arithmetic - forget it. I could do it if you gave me a thousand years, but I don't have a thousand years. Multiplication - niet. Division - absolutely niet. Algebra I could kind of do...possibly because it had letters in it. For me, my problem with numbers is completely exclusive to arithmetic - ie. I have no problem telling the time or reading bus or train timetables. I did well at all other subjects at school without exception, the grade difference in my GCSEs between everything else and maths being 4-5 whole grades, and that includes Chemistry. I did drop Physics when I was 13 though, because I could not understand simple (I am told they're simple) concepts such as velocity and displacement. I was slow to pick up methods in maths, even basic stuff like 'carrying over'. My brain cannot cope with mathematical concepts at all.