What was the most difficult subject in school?

[wit_afrika]

Math, Accounting, and Science...
...and before I dropped it as a subject, the African language of Xhosa.

 

[greenguy]

Wow, its interesting to see how many people were poorer with math! (It must be one of those right-brain/left-brain things) I was always better in math than English classes. I have lousy reading comprehension, but grrreat reading speed!

 

[thewiz]

I must be a little different...loved math.

Physics gave me fits although I had to call my instructor back after I got my first job -- I actually had to use an ometer (sp) which I had never seen a use for prior to that!

 

[Kuja]

Math, and the stoichiometry section of Chemistry. I completely SUCKED at both of those.

 

[WRITERPAUL]

I always hated math. Like bma1983 I became an English major.

I've always hated math too and was never good at it. Like my JUB "brothers", I majored in English and got my degree in that and Theatre.

 

[Silvernitrate]

Wow! Everyone is dissing on Math and Science! I LOVE math and science! I dont really have a worst subject. If I had to choose one, I'd choose english as of right now. I like english, but my current class is absolultely terrible! its like a waste of time because we do nothing in there! And Calculutators cant do everything for you! In calculus there are some points where its just incompetant! I use mine alot and just mess around with it all the time, its fun. Here it is:

http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/productDetail/us_ti89ti.html

Its awesome!

 

[RenaissanceMan]

All you have to do in math is follow a formula.

Not always (not most of the time) in "real" math...with many mathematical proofs you can try some standard or less standard techniques, but sometimes it requires pure ingenuity and creativity (and sometimes there will be many ways, some more creative and effective, more precise or rigorous than others).

But you're right about English being more subjective of course...but real math isn't completely black or white either.

And as for calculators...in my math courses, calculators are completely and utterly useless...sometimes there's not a single number (ie. digit...numeral...whatever) on the page. And if you try to make sense of an infinite sum (a pretty simple concept), the calculator won't help you much either...

 

[duroc5088]

Is school a subject in school?? If it is I choose school as the hardest subject in school.

 

[JustBoys05]

Signal Processing in college, somehow I dont get that stuff.

 

[Silvernitrate]

Ha! I feel stupid! In my previous post, I just realised I mixed in the words, "Calculus" and "Calculators" Shit! I almost did it again!

 

[yuty]

Wow, its interesting to see how many people were poorer with math! (It must be one of those right-brain/left-brain things) I was always better in math than English classes. I have lousy reading comprehension, but grrreat reading speed!

This is actually something worth studying (Yeah, I suck at math too...) Females also have a harder time at math statisitically speaking. I wonder what the connection is?

 

[frankfrank]

Literature. I could never get the hang of things like symbolism, allegory, etc. at the time. Even so many years later I doubt I would do very well. This stumbling block kept me from being fluent in a second language. I took Spanish in college, in an immersion course, and I was just starting to think in Spsnish as the course ended - surely a sign I was on the verge of becoming fluent. My ONLY choice for the next Spanish course was a literature one (with, yes, all the symbolism and hidden meanings, etc.) and I had no choice but to bail. :-(

 

[aleemkhann]

Organic chemistry.. what a frickin' sneaky subject!

In highschool its easy as counting, but as soon as you take it in university/college it gets harder than fourth year calculus!

God I hate organic chemistry!

Organic Chemistry's been a for me too! I dropped it as soon as I had the option.

 

[sherman]

Hated English, Loved Math

 

[lil_Diablo]

Here's a chart on how countries perform in math ability.
Here is the article @ the Washington Post.

America ranks almost as low as Mexico in Math skills.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41278-2004Dec6.html

 

[aleemkhann]

I see Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Egypt are missing. I've found a lot of people from these countries to be exceptionally good at Maths, Physics and Chemistry.

 

[RenaissanceMan]

My math professor once made a joke about the level of difficulty of our course and said that our first year university courses had material that was largely new to us (and so we were trying to get the intuitive/computational idea AND the more difficult rigorous/theoretical aspect), while students in other countries have mastered it in their last years of highschool (like in Germany), or in elementary school (China), or in Kindergarten (Russia).

I think India and China have the largest number of students that are good in math (maybe because there's so many of Indian and Chinese students to begin with), but at the higher level they seem to disappear a bit more (I'm guessing moving into physics, engineering or commerce, etc)....because I don't see that many professors are my university from those countries (my own teachers have been German, Irish, English)...and I'm in Canada, where I would think ethnic diversity would be blossoming.

But I guess we're talking about early highschool here (and the little article). I'm quite surprised Canada ranks so high....I thought we were doing poorly (and even poorer now).

 

[Paul_UK]

Maths for me too. I really struggled when I went on to college to study for an HNC in electronic engineering as part of my apprenticeship. The maths seemed to go way beyond what was needed for the rest of the course too....

 

[leshe]

I see Math was most unpopular in other parts of the world too, I always thought we did badly at it because we had bantu education here in South Africa which was "education for black people or non whites" designed to educate them only for subserviency. Interestingly I still took at first year varsity under a different non racial education system and then it started making sense.


I also hated Afrikaans although I did not do badly at it mainly because it was the language of the oppressor so there was this genral attitude amongst the people against it...

 

[Kester]

Math.

Failed every year I did it.