Nationals: Math, um... yeah Math is on the 8th of April Options

[Stephen That Fos...]

Well the fact that you've taken more of those tests is just it. You know how to take those tests. You are "experience(d)" with them. Many people have not, and cannot practice for them, so they will be horribly inconvenienced by this.

And if you look, I told you exactly whose math score was "bringing down the house" and you've seen his opinion on it.

http://usad.org/students/Students_online.asp
there you go, 30 dollars and you can officially practice.
now do me a favor and stop making people say "LOLPA"

What JBroms said is exactly my point. Many teams struggle to raise the money just to get to nationals. It seems unlikely they'll be able to gather up an extra $30 per student. So they are putting those schools at a horrible disadvantage since they will not have the means to practice.

Now do me a favor and stop siding against me, and in the process logic and reason everytime I raise a solid point. THAT is more worthy of an "LOL" than anything I've ever said.

[Stanley Tree]

To bring this back a bit, a month of extra math certainly helps. Yea, you need years of math experience already, but certain basic functions (trig identities, trig replacements, volume and area formulas) are a large part of the downfall of many math scores; things you can memorize in a week. This idea that you can't practice math just as much as you practice langlit, art, music has no foundation in reason. "Oh no, I suck at math, I can't ever learn it" should never stop anyone from attempting to learn it; in fact, it should encourage.

And Widget and Stephen need to cut this smurf out.

[Bhushan Deshpand...]

I have to say, as a Nationals medal winner in math last year, this is quite ridiculous. The bigger issue is not the extra three weeks of studying - I studied for perhaps fifteen minutes for math, and that was just making sure I could recall the basic area and volume formulas, trig identities, derivatives and integrals. If you need to study or learn certain things, MIT opencourseware has Calculus I and II online for no charge, and all schools will have books up through Precalculus.

The real issue is that copying answers from an written set of answers to an online system is simply pointless, and adds nothing to the contest. The system seemed to work fine at Memphis last year; I cannot see why there is a reason to change it. Time is already quite crunched for most students in math. I ("educatedly"-)guessed on two problems at Nationals because of time issues; this new system will probably mean that I would have to stop two minutes earlier (skipping at least a problem or two) to make sure I enter in the answers correctly. I hope that USAD will reconsider, but somehow I doubt it.

This post has been edited by Bhushan Deshpande: Nov 9 2009, 09:50 PM

[laureus]

When I was a junior, an extra month definitely helped because I learned some stuff on the nats test in school in that one month. Besides what you actually learn in regular class, there isn't too much difference since you could just learn/review the stuff a month earlier. However, more time is still beneficial, especially for lower scoring decathletes, since there are a lot of easy stuff they can pick up rather quickly. But it's always the people who can benefit the most from studying math who refuse to do it.

[TheAwesomeKid]

guys, we know reeve is usually a complete dbag, but he's being pretty reasonable.
For a lot of schools, 300 dollars isn't throwaway money (30x9+alternate) - this makes it harder to practice online.
As a matter of fact, it is tougher to practice for online math tests, simply because of the years of experience we have doing it pen and paper.
An extra month of practice may not help a certain individual, but it will almost certainly help any team that isn't Klein. You can always learn more math.

Nothing he's said is unreasonable, even if the way he says it is.

[debator]

i think we can all agree that USAD is being unreasonable here for a variety of reasons. fair?

[TheAwesomeKid]

essentially, yes.

[tryingtothinkaga...]

as um a two-time nationals gold medalist...
I really don't think this will turn out very well, after thinking about it for a while. It does theoretically have the potential to increase score on the whole a bit as people focus on subjects other than math for a month or so, but I find that highly unlikely. In all, I can find no way in which this would help decathletes as a whole. It provides just a few more ways for things to go horribly wrong. And personally, I wouldn't have wanted to risk my score in math to a computer malfunction, as much as the rest you seem to have not cared about your math scores.
Anyone remember the difference between Moorpark and WW in '08?

[caveman]

what the person above me said. as someone who went to nat's last year, and hopes to go again, i'm not looking forward to this. any chance they'll change their minds?

[debator]

i love how everyone is pimping themselves in order to lend credence to their opinions.

[DrSir]

i love how everyone is pimping themselves in order to lend credence to their opinions.

Not many other sources of Ethos haha...

[zzzptm]

Good gosh JBroms is the voice of reason... what's next, Research Monkey reporting accurate scores?

OK, so the math will be online. That is a shocker.

USAD already makes students sign an honesty contract or whatever it is that declares one is not cheating on one's tests and that one's calculators are legit and that they do not have CAS.

If a proctor/coach is not paying close attention, though, students could inadvertently be using calculators that are similar to permitted ones but that are themselves not permitted. It wouldn't necessarily be malicious, but it could happen and goose things in a bad way.

Even so, we're already seeing Texas state competitions no longer check calculators. My students told me last year of a coach that handed out calculators after a proctor had already passed by his kids. They then jumped to the conclusion that such calculators had stored formulas or other advantages, which then tainted their trust of scores from that event. As a coach, such stories nag at the back of my mind, I have to confess.

That this decision comes as a surprise makes it doubly worse. It simply should not be that way.

[Jonesy]

JBroms is the voice of reason

I feel like I should sig this for posterity.

[CouchBeck]

I have been told that the math test being taken online may not be set in stone. (numerous complaints anyone?)

[zzzptm]

Hopefully, they'll also decide to check caluculators...

[Abuelo]

Math test online is wrong. Another reason to do WSC instead.

[teeling]

Cliff, anything in the works for LAUSD as far as WSC?

[Abuelo]

Cliff, anything in the works for LAUSD as far as WSC?

DDD has met twice with the LAUSD Aca Deca Coaches. It seemed that he got a very favorable response but he would have to give you the specifics. We will have 67 teams in our regional competition this year and I anticipate more in 2011.

[debator]

that is a big number.

[raconteur]

Today I received an email from our state director stating that USAD wanted input regarding having math online. Has anyone else received any kind of info or feedback on this issue? I get the impression that having online math for nationals is not written in stone. However, it could be a smoke screen.