Study Buddies (AKA NOW LET US ALL NOT FAIL CLASSES AND SHIT)

[Airigh]

So, I'm turning 16 this year and I'm considering getting my GED either this year or the next at the latest. The only problem with this is I'm not entirely sure if I'm prepared in certain areas (ie. math and possibly social studies) and I'm not sure what I should do to prepare for such a large and significant task. Any advice? Google searches on the subject are misleading, confusing, or operated on the principle that you'll be either buying an overpriced book as practice or going in blind.

[The Nightman]

I didn't know you could get your GED at 16. Anyway, I'm sure your public library has some sort of book or something you can use as a resource...those are almost always better than anything you can find (for free) on the internet. What exact topics in Math and Social Studies are you having trouble with/needing to study?

[D-vid]

Got Probability Theory Exam in 33 hours. I'm 20% done studying. I can do that.

Scratch that. I'm losing hope.

[Airigh]

Yeah, you can get your highschool GED at 16! In Washington state, USA, at least.

I'm just sort of bad at math in general (not that I couldn't improve, of course) but I actually don't know the basics of algebra or advanced math yet. I do understand the concept of using a letter to represent a variable number but other than that... well, my education consists of first and second grade in a public school and the rest of it basically thriving on half-assed homeschool lessons from my parents and my own research primarily through the internet. Which means I'm good at processing written information, yes, but my general education is... pretty patchy. I don't do well in public schools - not because of learning problems, but because of anxiety and behavior problems. I have no grasp of 'social studies' because I've never gotten a social studies class or test, and I don't know what social studies entails or means.

[Riku]

Oh holy crap. Uh, that's...some bad planning on your parents' part. Haven't you been required to meet state assessments?

Social studies is typically the summarization of the social sciences: History (world and local), Geography, Sociology/Psychology, Economic studies, and every once in a while, they'll throw the other Humanities subjects in, like literature or art history. I remember that up until they split it into specific classes in high school, Social studies focused most heavily on history and geography with bits of the others thrown in as footnotes.

EDIT: Airigh, I"m not trying to shit all over you and your parents' system, but, you might want to look at all of these requirements that I'm not sure you guys have met, if it was as half-assed as what you're implying: http://www.washhomeschool.org/homeschooling/law.html

[The Nightman]

Well, math's my strong suit, and I can try to help you a bit with it if need be. My teacher showed us a website once where this guy spent his free time making math tutorial videos...if I remember correctly, this was it. https://www.khanacademy.org/




As for Social Studies, I'm probably not the best person to ask, but I know a little bit.

[Airigh]

Oh, yes, I've taken state assessment tests. But we've moved around a lot and... well... my parents haven't bothered to order a new test I guess. We've gone from Florida to North Carolina back to Florida, and then to Ilinois and now Washington.
I'll talk to them about it ASAP.

Anyway, that's actually what I suspected, I just didn't know the full extent of it. Thank you for explaining!

[SaintCrazy]

Hope you can figure things out. State standards are a pain to keep track of, let alone having different standards for different states to think about.

I just got back from the Cell Bio test. I'm kinda wishing I had studied more in detail... and earlier.

[Riku]

Oh, while I"m thinking about it, while I doubt that anyone else here is taking or planning on taking music theory classes, should anyone need help, I'm available. I'm safely through second-year theory, and can help with tricks on practicing hearing/singing intervals.

[Rinoko]

I can also help with music to some extent(mostly notation).

Also I'm good with math and physics.

[Reyo]

Got an 88% on my psych test with minimal studying, which tells me that YES! I CAN indeed psychology!

[Tetrunes]

I'm aiding a social studies teacher, and I'm pretty knowledgable in history. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll help if I can.

[Terraem]

Who is now well informed about macro-nutrients, functional foods and all they entail? According to my test results, it is me.

[The Nightman]

Well, I got my Biology and Algebra II final test scores back. I made a 70 on the Biology one (I'm ashamed...I could have done better), and I made a 96 on my Algebra II final. I've not gotten my English score back yet, but i feel like I did pretty good on it.

[SaintCrazy]

UGH one of my education professors is so scatterbrained it's pissing me off.

Every day we have assignments we need to complete before class, no big deal. But the assignments aren't even related to each other or even to the main focus of the class. In fact, I'm not even sure what the focus of the class is anymore. The assignments cover everything from use of technology in the classroom to student literacy (which I think was the main focus, at least for this part of the class). But she's so intent on showing us this new gizmo she found on the web or new app or tool that might somehow be tangentially useful in a real class instead of focusing on the original idea we were discussing.

The icing on the cake is that she's terrible with computers, so every time she tries to show us some new thing on the internet or uploads something to Blackboard, she can't figure out how to make links work and if something goes wrong she has no idea what to do, even if its as simple as finding the right link to click on the page, and then we waste class time because she has to call tech support to help her.

And then, when it comes time to do the assignments, I have to go hunt down the instructions in the syllabus or schedule somewhere, and I'm pretty sure what they say differs from what she says in class.

Whatever I'm gonna do with this written set of instructions tells me.

The only reason this bugs me so much is because she's an Education professor. She teaches really well in class, but she's terrible at managing everything outside of class and it leaves me clueless as to what she wants me to do.