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Vicky S sent me notice of a workbook Stephen Wilson has posted on his web site: SAT/ACT Math and Beyond: Problems Book by Qishen Huang.
The book is listed here. I've just ordered the solution manual, which Dr. Huang says is highly detailed (460 pages for the manual, 131 for the workbook). That's critical for those of us teaching ourselves, and not easy to find.
Dr. Huang estimates that 20% of Chinese high school graduates can work 90% of these problems, which he says are not as difficult as those on China's SAT equivalent.
And...on the subject of workbooks, I've emailed Myrtle, who is using the NEM Workbooks (New Elementary Mathematics Syllabus D 1 and New Elementary Mathematics Syllabus D 2).
Meanwhile, I have done no math at all this summer, because I am busy reading C's massive Summer Assignment list, all 2549 pages of it. As to that, please know that you are in the presence of a woman who has read every last word of Guns, Germs, & Steel. There are few amongst us who can say the same.
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11 comments:
Catherine, what did you think of Guns, Germs & Steel?
"Dr. Huang estimates that 20% of Chinese high school graduates can work 90% of these problems, which he says are not as difficult as those on China's SAT equivalent."
I should be impressed by high standards that aren't met? It's not so hard for a mathematician to come up with tough problems but it takes a lot of teaching skill to get the students to meet those standards.
ari-free
I've read every last word of Guns, Germs and Steel. I liked it. One of those books that makes fireworks go off in your head.
Also, sadly, one of those books that causes an irresistable impulse to lend it to other people, who then suffer the same impulse and lend it to other people. I have bought three copies of that book and have none left.
Hi Tracy!
I kept looking for New Zealand in the book --- it was barely mentioned!
I spent quite a bit of time (inspired by you, as a matter of fact) peering at his maps to FIND New Zealand.
I need an atlas.
(Any suggestions?)
ari-free -- Myrtle didn't think the problems in the book are high level---you should take a look if you have time, and see what you think.
I've only glanced at it, and although I assume Myrtle is right I'm pretty sure it's a good book for me. I'll use it to teach myself, and I imagine I'll use it to do some clean-up teaching of C in his new high school.
It's also great for me to have problems from the entire high school math curriculum (minus calculus) all in one place. I have so many math books & workbooks & freebies from the web stacked up around here now that it's hard for me to pull out what I need when I need it.
Speaking of things I need, why do economists use the logs of values to make comparisons?
(I may be framing that question too broadly...)
I see Dr. Huang has a chapter or two of problems using logarithms.
Good.
Speaking of things I need, why do economists use the logs of values to make comparisons?
Because logs convert a multiplicative relationship into an additive one, and an exponential relationship into a multiplicative one, making said relationships easier to understand and think about.
Speaking of things I need, why do economists use the logs of values to make comparisons?
Some quantities are related to one another in an exponential or logarithmic way. If you graph these relations on log-linear or log-log graph scales (people make special graph paper for these purposes), then the relations appear linear on the graphs. Thus, it is straightforward to view trends and make predictions.
Dan K.
oh, thanks! (Tracy & Dan)
That's terrifically helpful.
I've got to post some of the equations from Race Between Education & Technology -- I might be able to understand them now if I knew what the symbols meant---
GGS....I had mixed feelings.
On one hand, it's a tour de force. I'll be thinking about it forever, and I'm grateful to C's new school for giving me the incentive finally to read it.
On the other hand, it's incredibly repetitious, to the point that the book became grating around 200 pages in. By the end, I didn't want to hear, AGAIN, that the naive reader "may be forgiven" for assuming "X," or the naive reader "assumes Y" and so on and so on. (He doesn't actually use the phrase "naive reader;" can't remember how he puts it.)
Four hundred pages into the book, if you're still assuming that Yali & his chums have less cargo than white Europeans because white Europeans are genetically superior (which is something you didn't assume in the first place), you're an idiot.
Plus, you probably wouldn't still be reading the book.
At some point in a very long nonfiction book, the author should assume that his reader is an intelligent person who has followed the argument of the book (geography is destiny) and is now capable of applying the argument to a new case.
So: there are serious problems with "reader positioning," or whatever the term for the narrator/reader relationship is in literature. WAY too much "I'm Jared Diamond & you're not."
Also, I find the term "racist" offensive in the context in which he uses it.
Plus I'm pretty sure you could write the same book showing that the reason Jared Diamond & his ilk (i.e. humans) have so much more cargo than non-human animals also has nothing to do with genetic differences between humans and nonhumans.
heh
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