Math Is Fun Forum

Hi Mandy. Not sure exactly, but as I have written above, he did not set you up with a maths course.
I am not sure how the functional skills thing works and I think that someone had not got back to
Bob Bundy about something and that he decided not to proceed any more.
I think we had better wait until Bob Bundy is back on the forum.

The point that I was trying to make was that if you have already tried to do those courses and failed to complete
them then there is a danger that you will do the same again. Also since Bob may very well have started off the
process of trying to do the initial stages of setting himself up as a teacher and you as a student
(I am not sure what he has done though so far) you really must not book yourself on any other course.
If you do Bob will be angry about it because he will have to cancel what he has done and will have wasted time on it.

Hi Mandy. Sorry about this, but I don't know how you sign up for a functional skills course.
We had better wait until Bob B. comes back onto the forum.
Bob has said that there needs to be a 'teacher' who has registered a 'class' first.

This isn't an official maths course. We were both coming up with exercises/questions for you to try that were based upon
a syllabus of an exam board. You will probably find that, apart from minor variations, that it is standard practice for the
topics and sub topics specified to be like that in any GCSE maths exam board syllabus in the UK.
There is a way that you could transfer the questions that we ask on to paper if you have a printer that is compatible
with your laptop computer. You could copy and paste them into Microsoft Word, perhaps increase the font size by
selecting the text and adjusting it, and use the print facility with the software. However if you don't have a printer then
this will not be possible.

Another exercise for Mandy:

G1A

Above is a four sided polygon. I have sketched in markings which make the interior angles 90 degrees.

So angle DAB, angle ABC, angle BCD and angle CDA are all 90 degrees in size.

Question G1A1: What term beginning with "p" could be used to describe lines AD and BC ?

Question G1A2: What term beginning with "p" could be used to describe lines AD and DC ? (This is not the same as G1A1.)

Question G1A3: Assuming that lines AD and DC are not of equal size, what is the name of this shape ?

Question G1A4: If lines AD, DC, CB and BA were all equal in size what would the name of the shape be
(that is different to the answer to G1A3) ?

I think that Bob's email was to tell you what all of the things were that you had to learn - the syllabus.
To have actual questions to answer is a different matter. There can be a huge range of questions that can be asked for each sub topic.
I am usually capable of thinking of questions on a particular topic, however you might want something that is both professional and official.
I have seen on this website: http://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qu … -2015.html
that there are specimen papers and material. I also know that there are books like "GCSE Maths Complete Revision & Practice with online edition - Foundation"
and "GCSE Maths Workbook - Foundation the Basics"  with answers in "GCSE Maths Foundation Answers (for Workbook) - The Basics".
I could do with knowing what Bob Bundy thinks about this so DO NOT BUY ANYTHING YET.
The books that I have quoted are not very expensive - however we may not be able to discuss those specific questions online.
A better thing might be for myself and Bob to make up questions based on the syllabus and get you to try and answer them.
If we have made up the questions ourselves then we can discuss them freely. I am not sure about ones from a book !!

I am going to work through an example and give a report of each step that I take. I have used GeoGebra to make the picture.

(1) First I have installed GeoGebra from https://www.geogebra.org/download (Windows option) and run it and selected 'Geometry' from the list of options.
[Of course if you are doing this on pen and paper then you just need to make the drawing take a photo of it and load the
photo on to your computer. Skip past step 1 if you are doing it this way and go ahead and photograph and load in your picture.]
I have then selected from the tool bar at the top five icons along the "polygon" option which has an icon of a triangle.
I have selected 3 points using the mouse, ending with selecting the first point to tell it that I want a 3 sided polygon.
I have then right clicked on the mouse and selected 'show label' for each point/vertex.
I have taken a "print screen" using the prt sc key in the top right of the keyboard.
I have loaded up "Paint" from the windows accessories, and selected "paste", then cropped the image using "select" and "crop"
so that only the bit needed is chosen.
I have saved (Save As) the picture as a JPEG.

(2) Having got a picture in a suitable format saved on the hard disk somewhere such as in a "documents" area on the computer
I will go to http://imgur.com/ and 'Sign In' using my username/email address and password. I am assuming that you have an account.

(3) From the menu at the top right of the screen I have selected "images" then selected the button "Add Image", and then gone to
the documents place on the hard disk and selected the saved picture file.

(4) I have then selected my new picture.

(5) I have selected "Copy" from "BB Code". (This is the second last option on the right of the screen after selecting the picture.)

(6) In the Math Is Fun Forum post logged in,  I then paste in the image link text using "ctrl" and "V" on the keyboard or paste from the right click menu.

The result is this:

Here is the code with [ replaced by open square bracket and ] replaced with closed square bracket.

open square bracket img closed square bracket http://i.imgur.com/shOaCNH.jpg open square bracket /img closed square bracket

Here is the finished image of a triangle:

I suggest that you look back to post 1877 where Bob says
"use conventional terms and notation: points, lines, vertices, edges, planes,
parallel lines, perpendicular lines, right angles, polygons, regular polygons
and polygons with reflection and/or rotation symmetries"

Which of these terms do you understand already and which don't you understand? We can discuss the ones that you don't know.

Yes I agree with you Bob, you get two different results for the length of GD so the information is over-constrained.

Hi Mandy it's nice to hear from you.

Edit: One of the problems with you learning maths at a serious level is that you often stop suddenly.
You will probably find that you forget quite a lot of what you learn if you stop for a long time.
I recommend that you re-read post 1853 and attempt the exercise and also attempt the exercise
further down this page. You are welcome to return and do some more maths on this thread.
Regarding the daily diary idea that you had, there is no need to make it every day,
but perhaps every so often you should give us a bit of feedback including what you are stuck on,
your attempt to any exercises that we have set, and any thoughts on how easy
or difficult you are finding the exercises.
You can also start off a discussion which might lead to you getting a better understanding
of the maths that you are trying to do.

I could continue to give you exercises on various topics and discuss any areas where you are having difficulty.

A few thoughts on what topics to do are:
(1) Finish off graphs and point plotting
(2) Do some work on arithmetic involving negative numbers
(3) Powers and indices (squares, cubes, 4th powers etc)
(4) Approximations and rounding
(5) Prime numbers, factors and fractions

Obviously there are many other topics that you would have to do for GCSE maths.

If you mean T to mean the rook takes c5 then:

1. Qb5   Rxc5
2. Qd7+ Kxe5
3. Ng4+ (checkmate)

Or if you mean the knight takes c5 then:

1. Qb5  Nxc5
2. Ng4  c1=Q
3. e3+  (checkmate)