Maths

Well done!

What a lovely thread!

Congratulations Oncewasblueandyellowtoo

You are so right when you say Feminism is the liberation of women and girls, in turn education is also liberating.

Congratulations. I taught mature-age students and the only thing that held them back was lack of confidence in themselves.

I'm so sorry you were struggling with this, and so delighted you passed the test! I hope you have a wonderful time on the college course in question.

Congratulations! I'm sure you'll do brilliantly.

Brilliant! Congratulations, @Oncewasblueandyellowtwo - that's a fantastic achievement. Well done for all the hard work and - and here's to a successful college career.

(Way back in the mists of prehistory I used to be a lecturer and some of the brightest, most committed students I taught were mature students who'd come in through access courses - they were a joy to teach and to be around, and I'm sure your lecturers will find the same.)

Can I add....I love this thread!

www.onlinemathlearning.com/math-worksheets.html#Percents

Maths is one of those things that needs to be practised as I think it can be easy to think yes I get that but still not be able to work through questions.

I'd still recommend trying some of the sites listed on here but if you want some worksheets to check you actaully understand and can do common fraction questions -

www.onlinemathlearning.com/math-worksheets.html#Fractions

Do them on-line and it checks the answers for you as well.

Percentages are just fractions of a hundred.

If it helps, I consider myself good at maths - I'm a computer programmer, I do a certain amount of probability and stats in my day to day job, I enjoyed doing my a-levels and the maths sections of my degree.

I still, every time, have to sit and figure out how to work out percentages on a piece of paper to remind myself how to calculate them.

I do 100/100, 50/100 25/100 so I understand which number needs to go where to work out what the percentage is of say 34/146. It just won't stick in my head.

If you find things like that, you have 2 choices - memorise a formula, or have a way that you can work it out mid-test. For my Uni exams that's exactly what I did - some stuff I just memorised and trusted it worked and some stuff I learned how to figure out from scratch, and just did that in the exam.

So adding fractions.
Boy eats 1/2 a cake.
Girl eats 1/3 of a cake.
We need to compare.
So to see the amounts we need both cakes to be cut into the same sizes.
2 X 3 = 6.
1/2 gets made 3 times bigger on the top and bottom....
Boy eats 3/6
1/3 gets made 2 times bigger .
Girls eats 2/6
3/6 + 2/6 = 5/6.
So the Boy had the bigger amount and 1/6 of the cake is left.

OP needs to find the explanation that clicks for her. Sometimes it's just saying it slightly differently that makes it slot into place.

She's mentioned the visual idea of socks etc helped.

So get 100 socks or similar and start moving them into physical piles. Good luck!

Look at a fraction this way.
The bottom is how many equal pieces you cut the cake or pizza or cucumber into.
The top is how many you can eat...
1/3. You eat one piece.
2/3. You eat two pieces.
3/3. You get the whole cake.
4/3. You get four pieces..
However since your top number is higher that your bottom number you can take 3 pieces away to make one whole cake and 1/3

Sorry but I think that might be a bit confusing. If you have four thirds of a cake you've got the whole cake and part of another random cake.

I got an excellent book on maths recently.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782069453/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?psc=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8

Really helpful on just about every maths topic. To the point, clear and really explains the theory behind why you do what you do.

Look at a fraction this way.
The bottom is how many equal pieces you cut the cake or pizza or cucumber into.
The top is how many you can eat...
1/3. You eat one piece.
2/3. You eat two pieces.
3/3. You get the whole cake.
4/3. You get four pieces..
However since your top number is higher that your bottom number you can take 3 pieces away to make one whole cake and 1/3.

Sorry, forgot the pic

a family of 5 and One pot of stew
if everyone gets equal sized portions, they each get 1/5th

the bottle of tylenol only has 3 tablets left.
you have a dreadful head ache and use two. you've used 2/3 (two out of three) and are left with 1/3 of what you started with.

math can be fun

if washing and drying dishes is one task and you only wash the dishes you have done 1/2 (one task out of two) of the job

1/3 of an object is the same whatever that object is. 1/3 of an amount is different depending on the amount.
In my picture, 1/3 of the circle and the rectangle is the same, it means the object is split into 3 equal sized pieces, and 1/3 is one of those pieces.

With the numbers, to find 1/3, divide the number by 3
To find 2/3, first divide the number by 3 then multiply the answer by 2

Dido
So at work if someone was buying bread i was calculating in my head what fraction they would have if the loaf was shared between 3 house mates

If the loaf is being shared by 3 people each gets one- third - 1/3 ; if by 4, each gets one quarter- 1/4; if by 5 each gets one fifth 1/5.

How you do it could be , for an unsliced loaf by judging by eye and slicing it into the right number of parts or if a flat mate is particularly uptight measuring its length and dividing its length by the number of people. For a sliced loaf- counting the total number of slices and dividing that figure by the number of people.

I agree with others that face to face tuition is needed. Again without being rude, your last question is I think showing you are struggling with the concept of what is a fraction and the same time over complicating it.