71 Comments Add your own

• 1. Vanessa  |  September 20th, 2008 at 11:54 pm

  Really pity you lar, SuAnn..
  I understand e feelings too, having a nice teacher but sucks in teaching. >.<
  Haiz! =(

• 2. smartypants (except calculus)  |  September 20th, 2008 at 11:57 pm

  i am first!!! (aka proud kennysia’s fan)..you know lerr..i always see this in his blog whenever i read all the interesting comments… ..hehehe

  sorry to act funny but i got so tormented just reading this post. it brought back all the nightmares of calculus!”

• 3. smartypants (except calculus)  |  September 21st, 2008 at 12:09 am

  why calculus makes heartbeat rate so complicated, expressed in secant and slope!??

  heartbeat rate is so simple, only fast or slow
  FAST as when you feel breathless with anticipation of a first kiss….
  SLOW as in when in his arms, you are lulled into a dreamlike trance ..

  hope it helps..

• 4. smartypants (except calculus)  |  September 21st, 2008 at 12:48 am

  answer for a) is 69.6666 right?

  the working for a)

  1. 2948-2530 = 418 beats
  2. 42-36= 6 minutes
  3. 418 divides by 6 = 69.666 bpm??

• 5. pinkpau  |  September 21st, 2008 at 12:52 am

  vanessa : yea cant hate him :)

  smartypants : yes. i know how to get a b c and d… it’s the rest of the problem that i dont know. which is how to find the heart rate using the slope of tangent and getting there by using slopes of secant.

• 6. jane doe  |  September 21st, 2008 at 12:56 am

  hmm i got 69.6. >< but you’re probably right cos i have not taken calculus at undergraduate level.

• 7. ceres  |  September 21st, 2008 at 1:02 am

  sigh i hate calculus too!!! i deceived myself by thinking that i’m good at it cuz i really wanted to study actuarial science back then, so i took it for my pre-u programme. it was the only subject that i got 50 n below whereas i got 80 n above for all the other subjects. needless to say it pulled my average or rank down sighhhhhhhhh a year wasted just like that. somepart of me blame it on my calculus lecturer cuz he doesn’t really care bout weak students and didnt ask me to leave the subject b4 it’s too late =((((( haih just thinking about it makes me so miserable =.=
  oh but i don’t think u’re as weak in calculus as i am so i’m sure calculus won’t bring u down! good luck =)

• 8. LJY  |  September 21st, 2008 at 1:23 am

  But why are you doing maths if it makes you so very unhappy? :(
  It better be a compulsory thing and not something you’re voluntarily putting yourself through!

  I dropped maths this year, and can I say.. I’ve never felt so relieved in my entire life! =D

  I wish you luck nonetheless

• 9. jane doe  |  September 21st, 2008 at 1:57 am

  or maybe the question is asking you to analyse the data given? Find the deviation of a, b, c and d from the gradient of the best fit line?

• 10. ShaolinTiger  |  September 21st, 2008 at 1:59 am

  Don’t you use simple integration to get the slope at any given point?

• 11. makcik math zaman 70'an  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:06 am

  A secant line of a curve is a LINE that (locally) intersects two POINTS (Q and P) on the curve. The question here is after 42 min so btw 36 and 42 min 418 divided by 6 = 69.7

  As Q approaches P along the curve, the direction of the secant approaches that of the tangent at P, assuming there is just one. As a consequence, one could say that the limit of the secant’s slope, or direction, is that of the tangent. But in yuor question you have the values of 4 tangents.

  a) 69.7 + b) 71.8 + c) 71 + d) 66 = 278.4 divided by 4 = 69.6
  the average of the tan = secant fo PQ
  so the answer is 69.65

• 12. makcik math zaman 70'an  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:10 am

  it goes without saying, you are not taking my math above seriously! all i can offer is…..

  “long live to pau’s friends who can help”

• 13. sheon  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:12 am

  i hated calculus. and my results pretty much reflect how much i enjoyed my calculus class.

  lucky all the massive structures that i’ve built are still standing. hahahahaha…….

• 14. reallybites  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:19 am

  these homework, do you have to hand it up? or isit like tutorials where you discuss in class only.

• 15. chimpanzee  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:26 am

  su ann may i know what course you’re doing now? math is never easy coz it’s not like history sigh :/

• 16. Michelle  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:50 am

  Haha, I cried over algebra when I was 13. It was so dumb, so difficult and I could not understand.

  I had the same problem.

  But thank god, it was so long ago. But I’m still doing maths. I think the stuff that you’re doing in tough.

  Just get more practice. Practice really makes perfect. And CHIMPANZEE, MATHS IS NOT LIKE HISTORY OK.

• 17. k0k  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:12 am

  Hey, I like Maths! It’s one of the few subjects that I don’t need to swot for before exam.

  Unlike your standard med skul crap. It’s all brain-killing memory work.

• 18. Kevin  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:26 am

  Hahah nuub..69.65 is correct, its okla.. calculus 1 2 and 3 just have to pass it and then forget about it, at least you dont have to move to dynamics la statics la

• 19. Kevin  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:27 am

  Btw conclusion..that dude’s heart rate is normal because at rest adult’s heart rate is approx 70bpm hahah was bout to say he’s going to be ggfied

• 20. Keong  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:33 am

  there is one thing called ‘tembak aje’

  i left my maths knowledge at college when I graduated =(

  hah hah… still a long journey to go huh…

• 21. nyrac  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:46 am

  ahah. i always sucked at maths. i had to have loads of help from besties for maths, cram in logics and formulae last minute, and pass my exams, and forget everything about it the moment i step out of the exam hall. (so far my maths, till matriculation level, has always been an A though. how i do it i don’t know, baffles me still.) i don’t even remember how to solve simple sine and cosine and tangent and integration problems now. let alone stuff like what you’re doing now.

  that’s why i’m doing medicine :P and yay finals tomorrow and i’ll never finish studying +.+||| why am i still here wtf.

• 22. Jun  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:46 am

  if i had to do calculus while monitoring the patient’s vitals, the patient would have been dead by the time i got the prob solved X__X

• 23. rachel  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:21 am

  why does reading this entry makes me wanna go study??

  hmmm…. i should go and study now…

  arent you taking some economics course? why do u need to take calculus??

• 24. chin  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:24 am

  really interesting just reading the comments of the above..
  anyways hope you get through this phrase ASAP. i am lousy at maths that’s why i did mass communications.
  hopefully among ur readers there is a mathematician who will offer help.
  as the saying goes: never never never GIVE UP!! =)

• 25. lishun  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:32 am

  i am a medical student. the most i can do is multiplication.

  i multiply pulse measured in 15s by 4 to get pulse rate. i multiply breaths in 15s by 4 to get respi rate. i weigh patients and multiply whatever dose per kg/hr to get the right prescriptions. and even that gives me headaches.

  other than that, i do not do math. it’s one of the reasons i chose medicine. besides wanting to save the world and have a syndrome named after me.

  so yeah. can’t help you with your calculus, su ann. manyak maaf.

• 26. ap  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:34 am

  hey a little sympathy here, unfortunately i managed to fail math after turning my nose up at lousy lectures, but that means missing quizzes missing tests….. that’s part of a huge other story. it is within your ability! if u find the right sources to learn from…. try this webbie http://www.intmath.com/ it helped me alot with understanding the mechanics of integration, guiding me over the steps as a gd tutor wld do. i’ve had quite my share of ups & downs in regard to math, i’m sure u can overcome this hurdle dun let it hurt u or strike fear in your heart *getting dramatic

• 27. songjun  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:54 am

  lol i had to learn it on the fly using wikipedia omg

  *smacks su ann haha

• 28. TheRealAnonymous  |  September 21st, 2008 at 5:18 am

  How u gonna pass ur calculus lah like that? This question is damn straight forward lah! It already told you what it wants, and how to get it… and yet u still cracking ur head to do it meh?? SEI LOR like that !! =p Faster fly back here lah… ! hahaha

• 29. pik  |  September 21st, 2008 at 6:03 am

  biny every fri. after after party. canal / thompson.

• 30. carol  |  September 21st, 2008 at 6:30 am

  your gmail!! =)

  i haven’t packed at all and i leave in 2 days!

  take care… don’t meltdown anymore over calculus okay i give you another big hug.. i totally understand though.. i melted down over my accounting subjects where my professor was.. well. like yours. not born to teach =P

  mwah!

• 31. laundry fan  |  September 21st, 2008 at 8:03 am

  - youtube got more videos on how to wash laundry than calculus.
  - your laundry plurk got more professional responses than your calculus post.

  consider dropping calculus and do laundry lorr…!! or do what @28 advised..hahaha

• 32. KY  |  September 21st, 2008 at 8:44 am

  Hahaha i know you and your math, you can’t even get the whole clock and time properly already right? little miss late. :D

• 33. fern  |  September 21st, 2008 at 8:57 am

  YOU CAN DO IT!!

  i have a calculus exam come monday morning. I can do it too! T-T

• 34. alvin  |  September 21st, 2008 at 9:33 am

  hmm, this aira girl you were talking about….

  she sounds like a super-smart, small face, cutish, maybe with a little gothical spice thrown into the mix type of girl. The girl all the geeks want.

  you can wipe that smile off my face now.

• 35. may  |  September 21st, 2008 at 10:07 am

  dun be so despair k?
  sure can overcome it wan…lol

• 36. sixthseal.com  |  September 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am

  Calculus is evil. I could never make sense of it, so I took Special Consideration (went to a psychiatrist who wrote a letter saying that I have a couple of screws loose) after failing it the first time. Special Consideration at our uni in Melbourne guarantees a Passing grade. ;)

• 37. yee  |  September 21st, 2008 at 10:58 am

  i learnt that in sam taylors!

• 38. SamZz  |  September 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am

  Hey PinkPau! (this name nicer.. =p), I’m also 1 of the ones hating math so much now. I got A1 in Add Math during my stpm, but I hardly can cope with my Math T now in my STPM. Darn.. I can’t help u much like those uber pro’s here, jus wanna drop u a message here.. =)

  Math is something very interesting if u like it, n it kills when u hate it. I’m in a progress to learn how to love Math once again.. Try asking ur schoolmates/seniors for help on ur studies… I guess they r willing to help.

  Btw, I envy you vry much lahh… studying & enjoying ur life @ US.oh ya. I randomly came to ur blog via Mr.Kenny n now I’m a loyal fan of ur blog. =)

• 39. joiz3  |  September 21st, 2008 at 12:33 pm

  aaaahh. eventhough i’m younger than you i totally get you! cos i’m a chinese independent school we have to learn uec (equavailent of a lvls) maths in form4 and calculus (much deeper than required in spm) in form 5. i despise calculus. i hate it right down till the core. lol. so immature right. cos i’ve been in situations exactly like you. nice teacher. but. i. just. dont. get. it. i have no interest in it too. so i’ll be switching to arts once i complete spm. lol 2 whole years of torture for nothing. but anyways don’t give up! though i’m the last person on this earth to give you this advice cos i’ve totally given up on calculus.. the really deep stuff.(only because i can afford to do it. haha. cos spm calculus are just the basics) but hang in there lah. we’ve got your back. =) eventhough it’s just thru comments from the other side of the world. xD

• 40. Chen Chow  |  September 21st, 2008 at 1:34 pm

  Soon you would no longer have calculus..how many maths class you have to take?

  Don’t sweat.. you can do it.. Just seek help. Go office hour. ask friends..post it here and others would share with you some idea…

  All the best!

• 41. Honeybunny  |  September 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm

  All things are only hard the first time. Don’t worry, it gets easier.

  If you need help, seek one from a very good tutor. Who knows, you might get lucky and get a super cute angmoh tutor with scruffy wise beard. :D

• 42. chareli  |  September 21st, 2008 at 2:19 pm

  wow. math looks so foreign now. hardly touched it ever since i’ve been in architecture.

  ALL THE BEST AND GOOD LUCK!
  don’t give up!

• 43. Honeybunny  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  Here is a detailed drawing on how to tackle that question.

  http://i34.tinypic.com/qrc6zk.jpg

  In math, it really helps to draw stuff to help visualize the concepts, it’s easier adopt an understand, a feel for it.

  Also, it’s just me being weird but I always doodle when I am frustrated, and genuinely feel so happy when I solved a math problem that seemed impossible a minute ago. :D

  I love math. <3

• 44. CraSH  |  September 21st, 2008 at 3:32 pm

  makcik and honeybunny got the answer correctly. i think the key here is to understand these questions. they are a little different in how the questions are constructed compared to what you studied back in msia.
  anyway, good luck in the rest of your HW. i am sure calc will eventually sink in soon.

• 45. # 11 & 12  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:24 pm

  @ 19 and 43

  looking at our interpretatrions. it appears to me now the question is more of english rather than calculus of what the question means regarding “conclusion”.

  1. we all agreed that the secant lines are changing in the 4 given lines, so the we can only conclude that the estimated heartrate is 69.6 bpm??

  2. we can also make a conclusion that we cannot calculate the precise heartrate using secant lines.

  (may be the intention is to make students come to this conclusion and to realise that we can only use dy/dx to precisely predict at a given point as they move on to the next topic in calculus) ??

  pinkpau..post more of these probs..it helps to keep me young, feel like a college student all over again..hahaha

• 46. makcik spam  |  September 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm

  # 11 and 12= makcik

  @ honey bunny

  love your working paper. so expressive ..gives calculus some passion and kinda of ‘humanise’ it. well done!..if only calculus profs or lecturers feel the same way…

• 47. mudah.com.my is a bitch  |  September 21st, 2008 at 5:12 pm

  mudah.com.my invented calculus! lets bankrupt this company by clicking all the mudah.com.my ads. it’s all over and making me sick like how calculus is to su ann… lets have all bloggers make money from this bad malay themed company by clicking on all its ads.

• 48. Honeybunny  |  September 21st, 2008 at 5:19 pm

  Thanksss makcik but Idid nothing really… all I did was illustrate and express the solution you commented previously for a better understanding. Cheers. :D

  ————————————————————————-
  -Small Correction-
  Keypoint:
  The slope of the secant line, otherwise known as dy/dx or m is the increment of heart beats every MINUTE. (not seconds)
  ————————————————————————-

• 49. songjun  |  September 21st, 2008 at 5:50 pm

  lol guys she got the concept right the whole time :P after going thru it with her, the only thing she got wrong was the simple operation of taking averages…. :P HAHA

• 50. makcik mungkin kenal you  |  September 21st, 2008 at 6:17 pm

  @ songjun

  when i said “long live to pau’s frens! ” ..it is for peeps like you..no kidding you giving transalantic help??

• 51. songjun  |  September 21st, 2008 at 7:08 pm

  makcik: lol i used to teach her maths tuition even :p

• 52. notADoctor  |  September 21st, 2008 at 9:02 pm

  Agree with $43, and great effort #19!

  Though our heart rate seems constant, the instrumentation is really relying on the rate of change (dy/dx) to approximate the beat. The margin of error is really depending on the sampling frequency and duration; higher and longer being closer to the real.

  Please learn to love math and your lecturer and taking nothing off the table.

• 53. Ping  |  September 21st, 2008 at 10:48 pm

  i hate maths which is why i choose a course that doesn’t need me to learn calculus and etc that had to do with maths formulas :-P

• 54. yosie  |  September 21st, 2008 at 11:51 pm

  i hated my freshman calc class as well! i had a similar situation, trust me, when everyone in the class moans during a final because a question was written poorly, you know there is something wrong..

• 55. ront  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 1:47 am

  it asked….’what is your conclusion?’ is it expecting something along the line of Dr.House sarcasm?

• 56. pinkyboo  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 am

  in reference to your plurk msg (points to the right), I loveeeee Soho too! It’s so full of energy. I always like to go to chinatown first and slowly make my way up broadway into Soho. As u’re walking up you will notice how drastically the vibe + environment changes. Its like, one minute you’re at China and another minute you’re at, uh, New York! LOL :) It feels kinda surreal but in a good way. So what did you end up buying at Soho?

• 57. Js  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 8:32 am

  :( pity you, I for one have never been good in Maths and I still wonder why I picked up the subject, currently struggling to get a pass for my finals and the feeling of having a nice but lousy lecturer is no stranger to me either… Pardon me for my ignorance, but what course are you taking ? o_o

  Anyway, I wish you all the best ! You can do it :)

• 58. pinkshirtz  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 8:34 am

  Ooo .. i hated maths too in College!!! Lucky for me i had this RM200 calculator to solve equations. Slopes, gradients and area! What a nightmare! X)

• 59. KC  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 1:15 pm

  Such an inaccurate cardiac monitor to calculate the heart beat rate tat way, I wonder how many wrong diagnoses have been made :(

• 60. kiasu andrew  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm

  im not taking math in swarthmore hohoho

• 61. Honeybunny  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 6:34 pm

  Re-posting the illustration I posted earlier, just in case if anyone was wondering how exactly do you fuck the calculus question above. <3

  http://i34.tinypic.com/qrc6zk.jpg

  Math is like masturbating.

  Slow, hard, and sweaty at first but when you finally find the spot, and get the rhythm going… you’ll get rabbit-vibe-orgasms !! :D

• 62. cooknengr  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm

  That’s the beauty of American education system. The goal is to have you plot the graph and visually realize the slope is changing with time, knowing the rate of change in the steepness of line, you can calculate the answer. You can word the conclusions according to your understanding of the question.

  Lets put it this way, my sister failed her first driving test because the examiner asked her to perform a side parking ( parallel parking/3 point parking) along a red curb on the street of San Francisco. She did it perfectly, but FAIL, because she was supposed to tell the examiner’ ” Can’t park there, It’s a no parking zone”.

  With time you’ll notice that American’s education system is not spoon fed like back home, but help you to really understand the concept and freely let you apply what you have learned.

  Always remind yourself calculus is all about the rate of change, good luck.

• 63. pinkpau  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 pm

  jane doe : i would never dare say i am 100% right about any math problem :P

  ceres : trust me i am very weak in anything to do with math! i have to pause just to total up a bill..

  LJY : have to take it for higher level econ courses :(

  jane doe : i think i have to find the average.. but i dont know if it’s the average of the last two (since it says after 42 minutes) or all four

  shaolin tiger : is it differentiation? if so, then not at this point, nope

  makcik : see the thing is i dont know if im supposed to take the average of all four, or just the last two. my classmates seem to think it’s the last two only.. and that was the answer i intuitively worked out as well. but of course i could be wrong

  sheon : HAHAHA omg i dowan to be in any building u build!!

  reallybites : must hand up of coz! and it’s all graded

  chimpanzee : i’m doing a liberal arts course where i can do anything and everything and then declare a major before my 3rd year =)

  michelle : i’m 19 and i’m still crying over math.. sigh. i hate practice la.. i hate anything to do with math. ya chimpanzee said math is not like history

  k0k : bleh :( you’re one of those!

  kevin : but why take average of 4? why not the last two because it says “AFTER 42 mins”

  keong : lucky u :( iwish i could leave math behind forever too

  nyrac : eh pre-med here got a lot of math to do wan.. even in the chemistry subjects there’s like some high level math

  jun : hahahahaha

  rachel : i need to take at least two calculus courses before i can take intermediate microeconomics

  chin : ahh. i would have loved to do mass comm…

  lishun : eh wow same like nyrac up there! she said medicine dont need math. that surprises me!

  ap : hey you’re the second person to show me that link. thanks much! i will look it up in about two hours when i have to start on my math again

  songjun : sowwy :(

  therealanon : where got obvious? you know meh how to get the pulse after 42 minutes? i dont even know if it means between 42 and 44, or just ngam ngam at 42..

  pik : huh?

  carol : FASTER COMMEEE HEREEEEEE !!

  laundry fan : i would love to fly home and avoid handing in my calculus homework :(

  KY : stoopid =(

  fern : good luck!!!

  ok answer the rest later. gossip girl time!!

• 64. Kevin  |  September 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 pm

  See ah paus, one of the best advice given by my Structures lecturer was him saying “Don’t think too hard or too much”
  Though structures if you dont think hard sure kenot answer 1 haha

• 65. TheRealAnonymous  |  September 23rd, 2008 at 3:11 am

  If dunno i dun need to lansi u lah correct anot? LoL…

  Maths is my thing okay! =p haha…

• 66. anne  |  September 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 am

  i used to do calculus in pre-u.
  i tot i got over it, and now i need calculus in quantitative analysis and econometrics. (in the end we just use computer softwares to do it! life is so easy with technology can?)
  it’s quite useful to get the hang of basic calculus knowledge. =))
  it’s fun…and challenging.

  btw, isn’t it we use differentiation to get the slope of a line tangent to the secant?!!?! intergrating is the other way round. i am not too sure. hehe calculus is in the drain oredi!

• 67. Rachelle  |  September 23rd, 2008 at 10:32 pm

  *pats back* I totally totally understand.
  Stupid stupid Calculus. Heck, I even wrote an epic poem for it!
  I took it last year, during senior year of high school and err.. didn’t work out very well. As in, it was the first class I ever flunked. -__-lll Needless to say, it made me weep and get all stressed out too.
  Get those Sparknotes or Calculus for Dummies (haha oxymoron much?) books, they might help a teeny bit. =) All the best though! Gambate! I cannot wait till I’ll have to endure Calc again..

• 68. grace  |  September 23rd, 2008 at 11:28 pm

  eh calculus is fun wat! although i really shouldn’t be saying this since i don’t get to do math anymore. bah, majors.

  that looks like exactly the kind of stuff i got while doing intro calc in cimp@sunway. fun fun fun fun fun. haha. stay strong su ann :D

• 69. sheon  |  September 24th, 2008 at 5:11 am

  hahahaha…..i dare you not to step foot in KL Pavilion!!! and not use KL Putrajaya Highway!!! ahahha

• 70. mei yueh  |  September 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm

  I hate my math textbook as well. I’m using James Stewart. And I can’t use calculator here, no formula sheet, weird definition questions as homework and yes, I’m starting to hate math. =(

  I’m running to my TA for help (tomorrow) and if can’t… I’ll run to my math tutor in my residence.

• 71. Honeybunny  |  September 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pm

  http://i34.tinypic.com/qrc6zk.jpg
  (Illustrated answer for pinkpau’s question if anyone was curious. )

  Just like having sex… the moment you fill yourself with despair and dissatisfaction of course you won’t be able to solve the math problem… you go down the slippery mental slope.

  Calm down and focus… things really aren’t that hard once you take the despair out of the equation. o.o

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