Anyone have any insight with my problem and maths?

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I've probably done alot of these posts;however I've found more about myself and my problem regarding maths.

I find it hard to do any problem solving really when it's verbalized.
It has to be visually abstract or a problem I can process visually.
That's how I found out why I exceed at understanding the concepts;however trying to apply very difficult.
It's really stupid when I'm getting high marks in subjects that involve alot of maths like Chemistry and Physics and coming out with poor grades in maths because of this some sort of verbal difficulty I have.

For Example:


Period 1 has 15 students in it and a test average of 86%
Period 2 has 21 students in it and an average of 88%.
Period 3 has 12 students in it and an average of 95%.
Use weighted means to find the overall average of the classes.



I find something like this really hard to process and work out.

But chemistry equations, I'm fine?


Is there anyway I can cope with my problem? I can only solve these type of questions when someone gives me a hint on the first step or what the questions really means.

With these type of questions I have problems processing the intentions of purpose it wants me to do.

But, when it's abstract+ numbers+ visual= I'M A BEAST.

I really don't get why I have such a problem with these type of questions???

Do you have difficulties processing all types of verbal information? It may just be that your mind is not geared to comprehend matters through a verbal context. Maybe word problems and verbal phrasings are like FM radio waves to you, while you may happen to be an AM wave reader. Perhaps your verbal IQ is much lower than your performance/logical IQ--a bit of the opposite of Non-verbal Learning Disorder.

Is it possible for you to re-write the question in a way that makes sense to you? Can you make it into a chart, and then work from there?
Or is it that the verbal format is so difficult for you to comprehend that it becomes impossible to make any sense of?
If the latter is the case, then you may need to explain your specific difficulties to your teacher and ask them to put it in a chart/visual/mathematical format for you.


Best of luck to you in school and in life!

Do you have Discalculia ? It's a disability common with people with Fragile X Syndrome....

I'm not sure I spelled it right but I think that's what it's called....

Perhaps the math concepts you use in an actual math class are simply much more difficult than the math concepts you use in physics or chemistry.

I have similar problems, although my problems have more to do with learning new notation in math class. I had a lot of trouble getting used to the idea that x is a number in algebra class, but once I got it all the problems became trivial. Now I'm trying to learn tensor calculus on my own and so far I've tried 3 times but I just don't get it. It's kind of frustrating that no one in the whole world seems to be interested in putting something online or in a textbook that gives an example problem. I don't get anything unless I can think of a real life example, which is causing problems in the higher level math I'm doing now.

I once tutored a guy in a physics class a semester behind me and I noticed that I wasn't able to understand anything he said unless I wrote it down and he wasn't able to understand anything I wrote unless he spoke out loud. You might try figuring out which representation of the problem is most comfortable to you and then try to translate it before you start the problem.

With the example problem you gave you could just try writing out only the numbers in some sort of organized way to see if it makes it easier for you to understand, like maybe

15 * 0.86
21 * 0.87
12 * 0.95

If you're interested in physics or chemistry after High School then you're eventually going to have to get used to the idea of units because they do matter. I don't know if units distract you in the same way that verbal problems do.

What would probably be best would be if somebody sat down with you so that he could react on a real-time basis to your questions. All in all I would just keep trying different things over and over again and try to figure out which one works best.

If you struggle with word problems, then you should be having trouble in chemistry and physics instead of math. All math related problems in chemistry and physics are word problems, while most problems in math are not.

I sometimes have problems processing verbal info, my verbal IQ is higher (above average) than my performance IQ. However my working memory is really bad so I have problems sometimes keeping all the bits of info that are needed for the question in my mind. Also it seems to affect my ability to think linearly. If you had a test done you could see your problem areas (there are IQ tests on the net that break it down for you and tell you what areas you are good at and where you struggle).