does maths ability have a shelf life?

[fckvwls]

Charles Foster Kane - He was quite good value for a while

[Ignis Fatuus]

i got an A in maths A-level 15 years ago but didnt touch it since

now i've come back to it and im trying to pick up fairly hard maths in work and im really really struggling to grasp it conceptually

am i out of practice, is "maths thinking" something i can get back into, or have 15 years of living well put it out of reach?

I've always reckoned that if you don't use it, your maths knowledge will drop back to at least one entire level of education below your highest level.

Me: degree in maths. Present level: can solve quadratic equations and perform simple differentiation.

Don't worry about the maths, there are other abilities that decay with age too.

[VectraMan]

Amateur. I got A in A-level, 1 in special, A is Further Maths, 1 in Further Maths special. Got an upper second in my degree - I was very upset.

I never understood how people managed to take Maths and Further Maths as two seperate A-levels. Presumably if you can do Further Maths, you can probably do Maths.

I got an A in A-level maths, but I've always been convinced it was a mistake. The teachers predicted I'd get a C, and then I really screwed up the exam.

[doomage]

Nothing like a good old debate about maths.

A maths debate, if you will. Excellent maths debating everyone.

[Sysman]

xkcd: Students

Fun Fact: decades from now, with schools a distant memory, you'll still be having this dream

This is true.

Not quite that dream, but I did have one where I couldn't remember which lectures were when.

Or which lectures were where, too.

[VectraMan]

Nothing like a good old debate about maths.

A maths debate, if you will. Excellent maths debating everyone.

Which reminds me of Alison Smith. Who sat next to me in my A-level maths exam whilst wearing the most revealing summer dress you can imagine. I knew looking up would mean an eye-full of 18 year old breastage, but I told myself that this could be the most important day of my life, there'd be pleanty of other days to look at breasts, and stayed fixated on the exam.

The mistakes we make when we're young.

[d000hg]

I've always reckoned that if you don't use it, your maths knowledge will drop back to at least one entire level of education below your highest level.

Me: degree in maths. Present level: can solve quadratic equations and perform simple differentiation.

Don't worry about the maths, there are other abilities that decay with age too.

You'll certainly forget specific techniques if you don't use them but that doesn't mean you've lost the ability - maths may be logical but it depends on axioms which you have to know in order to deduce things you might have forgotten.

I never understood how people managed to take Maths and Further Maths as two seperate A-levels. Presumably if you can do Further Maths, you can probably do Maths.

Couldn't you claim the same about A-level and a degree? Further maths builds considerably - if you came out of the main A-level with a solid grounding you wouldn't think it WAS any harder, but if you managed to get through the regular A-level by simply learning stuff it would be pretty tough.

[VectraMan]

Couldn't you claim the same about A-level and a degree? Further maths builds considerably - if you came out of the main A-level with a solid grounding you wouldn't think it WAS any harder, but if you managed to get through the regular A-level by simply learning stuff it would be pretty tough.

Buy you don't do A-level and a degree at the same time in the same subject. One follows on from the other.

Seems like a cheat for people who want 3 A-levels but don't want to study 3 subjects.

[doodab]

Buy you don't do A-level and a degree at the same time in the same subject. One follows on from the other.

Seems like a cheat for people who want 3 A-levels but don't want to study 3 subjects.

But you study twice as much maths, which if you are going to uni to study maths or physics makes a lot more sense than filling up the time with something else.

[d000hg]

When I did it you didn't do M & FM in parallel, you did 2X as many maths lessons and finished M in the first year, then FM in the 2nd year.

You can no doubt fiddle it a bit, but the point is you do 2X as many modules and therefore cover far deeper stuff. View it as "double maths" if you prefer