I am completely frustrated right now. I didn’t get through the second half of the unit Rational Expressions this week but, believe me, I f***ing tried.
I spent 4 to 5 hours yesterday working through KA finishing the last section of the unit and attempting to get through the unit test. I attempted the unit test 4 times and each time made a single mistake which not only made me have to retake the test but also forced me to go back and redo parts of the unit because failing the unit test requires you to go back and redo certain exercises before retaking the test if you want to get 100% completion. The questions I was given take ~10 steps per question and making one mistake will obviously lead to the wrong answer. There are 9 questions on the unit test meaning I have to get all 90 steps correct. Every time I took the test, I would get 89/90 steps correct and make a single mistake most often because I didn’t write the question out properly or didn’t read my own notes properly. I’d spend about 10 minutes per question, as well, so failing the test 4 times due to making 1 mistake each time was SO. F***ING. FRUSTRATING.
(Ok, I’m now editing this post and have cooled down a bit. Still annoyed about it though…)
The Coronavirus is more-or-less the same as it was last week and I don’t have any noteworthy news to report. Self-isolation is getting really boring and it seems like a lot of people may be starting to go out and see a handful of their family and friends. It was my 30th birthday this past Tuesday and I myself had a drink with my mom on her front porch, though we did stay 6 feet apart from each other the whole time. It seems like things are getting better and I’m optimistic that some of the restrictions will be lifted in the next month or so.
The second half of the unit Rational Functions was about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing rational expressions which is done the same way you add/subtract/multiply/divide standard fractions. Having a fairly good understanding of how to manipulate fractions in these ways and being that the ‘rules’ are the same when manipulating rational expressions, I thought I would get through all of it fairly easily. Oh how wrong I was…
The key throughout most of the questions, whether I was asked to multiply/divide or add/subtract the rational expressions, was factoring the polynomials properly. Once I was able to factor the polynomials appropriately into binomials and monomials, I was then able to cancel out common-factors between the numerators and denominators to simplify the equation. After that, multiplication/division questions weren’t too difficult as I would simply multiply the factors across the numerators and denominators to get the right answer. Addition/subtraction questions, however, were much more difficult. After factoring the polynomials in these questions I would then have to 1) figure out the non-common factors in the denominators of each expression, 2) take those factors and multiply them by the opposite expressions numerator, 3) then add all the factors in both numerators, and 4) then combine and multiply the factors in the denominators of both expressions but making sure not to double up on the common factors of each expression.
As I said earlier, each question often had ~10 steps and getting a (+) or (-) sign wrong, taking a number to the wrong degree, missing a common factor, etc. would result in the entire question being wrong. Sometimes I would have the right answer but then not enter it in expanded form and get the question wrong. Having spent so long going over and rechecking my work on each question and still getting some wrong, I began doubting myself throughout the entire process. I have never felt as stressed hitting the “check” button when finishing each question as I did answering these questions, especially when I would get close to the end of the unit test without having made a mistake up to that point.
I’m going to end this post here. This is the shortest post I’ve written which is partly because I didn’t get through much material this week but also because I’m completely frustrated reflecting on this week and thinking of how much work I did and feeling like I didn’t accomplish much. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but if someone tells me I can’t do something I usually get an intense, spiteful motivation to do whatever that thing is to prove them wrong and to prove to myself that I can. In a weird imaginative kind of way I feel as if this unit looked at me and said “you’re not good enough to get through this”. I’ve never been more motivated to get back onto KA and finish a unit. I WILL get through this. :@