Posted: Jan 07, 2011 4:20 pm
Fallible wrote: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.
I don't think I'm as bad with numbers as this, but this certainly sounds familiar.
I can't do anything other than adding, even on paper. I find ways around that though. People are always baffled with how I subtract, but for example... Say I need to do 7-5. I'd count on my fingers up from the five... So the answer is 2. I cannot comprehend why anyone would do it any other way.
People always taught me ways of doing maths, but my issue was I couldn't remember what rules did what.