I mentioned last year that trigonometry had been my mathematical Achilles heel until I finally got it smoothed out by Khan Academy in preparation for MST-124. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, it was that I’d have to re-invent it every time I saw a triangle. And it turns out there are a lot of triangles.
I’m now officially on the far side of Unit 4, which is trigonometry. By the time I opened up TMA02 and saw the trigonometry stuff, I caught myself saying, “Well this is easy!” And I wasn’t even punished by the maths gods for my hubris! It felt really great to be so at ease with the concepts in it. I can no longer blame not properly learning trig for my failures, and will have to admit to not being that bright, instead.
I also finished the iCMA42 for MST-124 (which covers units 2 through 4) with full marks. I managed to avoid making the silly, silly mistake I did on the last one, by forcing myself to triple check my answers with a calculator if I got confused by anything. On the other hand, it took me 9 days and 10 hours to complete, so I can’t necessarily use the same techniques when it comes time for the exam. A two-week exam would be just about right, though.
Even though I’ve put TM129 away for the time being, I had a chance to attend a last-minute online tutorial with my tutor last week. He’d had a face-to-face scheduled about forty miles away (and about sixty miles from where he lives), and literally nobody signed up for it, so he sent out an email and did it online.
In the end, there were only three of us on it, but it was just him and me chatting by voice for the first fifteen minutes or so. Obviously, we didn’t cover much of the actual module material, but we talked a lot about TMA strategies and general study skills. It was good motivation, as well. I haven’t yet attended any face-to-face tutorials, but am starting to think it could be quite advantageous. It’d mean an entire evening away from my children, though, and that’s something I want to avoid after my father’s part-time associate degree left us practically feral for four years.