This is just an update on my last post about maths prep for OU’s MST124 module.  Altogether I’ve given it about two and a half weeks of study and revision, and I feel completely confident with my level of maths going into MST124.

I think my breakthrough occurred when I decided that I probably should stop trying complex equations in my head or doodling on my screen with the mouse.  It was when I pulled out a pad of paper and a pen that it all slotted into place, and it turned out my brain hadn’t completely liquefied in the several decades since I’d left school; It was just super lazy.  Not a shocking realisation, then.

So I’m nearly back up to the level I was when I dropped out of high school, with exponential and logarithm manipulation added to my tool belt.  (Learning logarithms was way cool, but the Khan Academy model wasn’t set out in the most logical order.  It took going back to the beginning after I’d gotten halfway through and learned bits and pieces from other sites.)

I went back onto the OU’s Maths Choices MST124 diagnostic Are You Ready quiz last night, and this time ran away with full marks in less than 15 minutes.  A dramatic increase on the 40-something minutes it took last year for 70- or 80-something percent.  Still, that’s simply being able to crunch the numbers.  If they were to throw words like “justify” or “explain” I’d be reduced to the sludge in the bottom of my vegetable “crisper” in no time.  So I still have plenty to do this summer in terms of getting proofs down and maybe skipping a bit ahead so I’m not taken off guard.