Colleges across the country are grappling with the same problem as academic setbacks from the pandemic follow students to campus. At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents. More students are being placed into pre-college math, starting a semester or more behind for their majors, even if they get credit for the lower-level classes.
Colleges largely blame the disruptions of the pandemic, which had an outsize impact on math. Reading scores on the national test known as NAEP plummeted, but math scores fell further, by margins not seen in decades of testing. Other studies find that recovery has been slow.
I struggled with any math basically beyond fifth grade. It was incredibly hard for me. Math continued to build on the previous year until I worked my ass off to get C’s. Every year after that I got C’s all while spending hours and hours studying the homework and equations and doing problem after problem. I was in remedial math at community college. The only reason I passed college algebra was because the homework was online and I was able to do every problem over and over again until I got it right. That was 14% of my grade and got me up to a C.
Some people don’t get the support they need. In a subject like math that is detrimental.
Fractions and decimals. There it is. You never learned how to read .125 as 1/8 and vice versa. This is the most common thing in the US, maybe elsewhere. If you don’t really understand that, then Algebra and Calculus may as well be Greek to you.