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.

  • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Is this what you mean they couldn’t answer? Or are you saying would just be hard to submit answers online?

    Denote the methods used and how many of each item can be made in the following baking situations:

    Ed has: 4 dozen eggs (thank god prices came down some so he didnt get robbed), 5lbs of sugar, 12lbs of flour, and 5 gallons water.

    Item 1 requires: 2 eggs 1lb sugar 2lbs flour

    Item 2 requires: 1 egg, 4oz sugar, 300oz flour

    Item 3 requires: 500ml water, 250g sugar, 350g flour

    • @xkforce@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The situations I am talking about are things like: “You have 6 pounds of flour, 6 pounds of sugar and 12 eggs. Each cake requires 2 pounds of flour, 4 eggs and 1 pound of sugar to make. How many cakes can be made? What ingredient if any, is left over? How much of that ingredient is left over if any?”

      Or being able to work in units of pounds but not grams. They struggle with generalizing what they know. i.e its brittle knowledge. They know how to press buttons but not why

      • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Gotcha, that was my intent of making item 1 easy without conversions. Then 2 conversions, then 3 conversions to metric. Thanks for spending the time to type that out for me. It helps me get a better grasp of it. : ) Hope you have a great day