Help - embarrassed to ask !

Keeping_Motivated

OP ignore small minded people who cannot understand that you don't know something that they do. I am sure they know absolutley everything other than how to be sensitive and understanding when someone is asking a genuine favour :rolleyes: and to be honest I would rather be a caring sensitive person who doesn't mind asking for help if I need it than a know all anyday OP so don't worry yourself

I'm glad to see that most posts where form helpful understanding people as usual :T

KM x

chipmunk

Keeping_Motivated wrote: »

OP ignore small minded people who cannot understand that you don't know something that they do. I am sure they know absolutley everything other than how to be sensitive and understanding when someone is asking a genuine favour :rolleyes: and to be honest I would rather be a caring sensitive person who doesn't mind asking for help if I need it than a know all anyday OP so don't worry yourself

I'm glad to see that most posts where form helpful understanding people as usual :T

KM x

Thanks for that KM. I'd only just looked back at my original post and was quite upset to read that persons comments. Perhaps one day they might need help with something and get the same response as they gave me. I'd like to think that I would help them out if I could though.

A global thanks to everyone who was kind enough to give me the help I needed.:T

27col

I was at school long before calculators were invented. So we quite often used logarithms and hence log tables.
I found that my son, along with many of his age, had a problem when using calculators. What ever the answer that came out, they believed. If they had keyed in the wrong figures or decimal point, they still believed that the machine was right. Even if the answer was a hundred times bigger than it should have been, or a hundred times smaller. When we used logs, it was necessary to establish the order of magnitude of the answer, ie; was it approximately, .1, 1, 10, or 100. A lot of calculator users have no idea of the order of size of the answer that they should expect.It would be interesting to find out if my thoughts on this subject are more generally felt.

Airwolf1

The point really on these forums is to help people out, and not to have a go as sometimes happens.

maman

While I think wildmandy's post was unnecessarily harsh, it does annoy me when people happily own up to being hopeless at maths (especially some women sadly who seem almost proud of the fact) while people don't go around boasting that they can't read. I think the OP had the right idea, if you can't do something, ask for help and learn!

chipmunk

maman wrote: »

While I think wildmandy's post was unnecessarily harsh, it does annoy me when people happily own up to being hopeless at maths (especially some women sadly who seem almost proud of the fact) while people don't go around boasting that they can't read. I think the OP had the right idea, if you can't do something, ask for help and learn!

Maman, thanks for saying that I had the right idea, however just want to point out that I don't happily admit and am absolutely not proud of the fact that I'm rubbish at maths. All my life I have had difficulty in understanding maths other than the basics, i.e. I can add/subtract/times etc. Percentages confuse(d) me though:o But I've learnt various ways of how to calculate them now thanks to the helpful people on here.:j

I never liked Maths at school (and the teacher was terrifying) so I suppose I didn't really try as hard as I should. However, I excelled in all other subjects and have managed to hold a good, well paid job for the last 28 years so I don't think I've done too badly.

will-he-payitoff

littleboo wrote: »

And a handy tip for working out what 17.5% vat is.

17.5 = 10 + 5 + 2.5 and 5 is half of 10 and 2.5 is half of 5

So you divide by 10, add half, then add half of the half

ie

VAT on £60 = 6 + 3 + 1.50 = £10.50

Sorry but its not, this is 60 + 17.5% . A total figure of £60 would consist of £51.06 + 8.94 vat at the old rate.
To work vat out divide figure by 115 then multiply by 15

Pssst

Just to add my bit,I think the reason that a lot of people are rubbish at sums is that it develops out of a kind of mass hysteria and learned helplessness.

Remember way back in school? Did you think that sums was hard then? propbably so and why? Becuase lots of people gave out the vibe that sums was hard and only really clever kids could do it.

In reality,sums should be very easy becuase in day to day sums,there is only one answer.

Of course when you get into more complex stuff then its a bit of a different ball game but in most cases,there is only one answer-the right one.

Now i was also indoctrinated into the "sums is hard" school of psychological programming.

I blundered all the way through school being not very good at it. It has major side effects in that not only are you crap at maths but you also end up being crap in chemistry,physics and other stuff.

When i left school and got into college,i was determind to do better.
My first step was to go to the electronics shop and i bought myself the most complex Casio pocket calculator i could lay my hands on. It could do everything,even draw graphs on screen.


It helepd an aweful lot though i realise i was short cutting a little.

I also recently got my hands on Dr Kawashimas brain training and the maths bits on there really smarten you up for mental arithmatic.

HTH

maman

Didn't mean any offence chipmunk, I admire you for wanting to work it out and what you've achieved more widely. But I do stand by what I said, I'm sure we've all met the 'I can't do maths' brigade, often said in a giggly, dizzy way. It just grates on me!!:mad:

chipmunk

maman wrote: »

Didn't mean any offence chipmunk, I admire you for wanting to work it out and what you've achieved more widely. But I do stand by what I said, I'm sure we've all met the 'I can't do maths' brigade, often said in a giggly, dizzy way. It just grates on me!!:mad:

No offence taken:D