>The disability accommodations office easily accepted the suggestion and gave me 50% more time on a test deliberately designed to be difficult enough to not be completable within the allotted time.
One of my particular axes to grind is the entire concept of a "weed out class" and this sort of complaint as a subset. The types of people to teach math courses are the types of people who might not be able to fully appreciate the concept of having difficulty in a math course, and talking to them, they genuinely think that a student who knows the material should be able to complete the Calc 1 or 2 tests in about 20 minutes. It's only through experience that they scale their tests down to an appropriate level for their actual students.
As you were open about your experience: In high school I dated a girl who used this particular strategy to game the SAT. I thought that the math section was humorously easy, given that both of us were in slated to take Calculus as seniors and were in honors math courses before that. In theory, the SAT does not include math nearly as advanced as that, and should all be already mastered as prerequisite knowledge for the next level.
When she told me that she got more time on her test for her learning disability, I paused, and said "oh, that's why you're having so much difficulty on the math section. I didn't know you had a learning disability. That makes a lot of sense.". From my point of view, math was something that you either knew, or didn't know, and once you know it, it's easy. If you can't learn, of course math you already "learned" would be hard.
Well, I have since learned that A) this is not an appropriate way to talk to anyone, especially a girlfriend, B) apparently people don't learn in the same way as I do, especially for math, and C) that this is a way rich people game the system, not that she actually had a learning disability.
If I remember correctly, that professor was already reddit-famous for various other callouts, including this one I "reported" for bestof: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/9odleh/a_perfect_example_of_why_you_shouldnt_trashtalk/
>The disability accommodations office easily accepted the suggestion and gave me 50% more time on a test deliberately designed to be difficult enough to not be completable within the allotted time.
One of my particular axes to grind is the entire concept of a "weed out class" and this sort of complaint as a subset. The types of people to teach math courses are the types of people who might not be able to fully appreciate the concept of having difficulty in a math course, and talking to them, they genuinely think that a student who knows the material should be able to complete the Calc 1 or 2 tests in about 20 minutes. It's only through experience that they scale their tests down to an appropriate level for their actual students.
As you were open about your experience: In high school I dated a girl who used this particular strategy to game the SAT. I thought that the math section was humorously easy, given that both of us were in slated to take Calculus as seniors and were in honors math courses before that. In theory, the SAT does not include math nearly as advanced as that, and should all be already mastered as prerequisite knowledge for the next level.
When she told me that she got more time on her test for her learning disability, I paused, and said "oh, that's why you're having so much difficulty on the math section. I didn't know you had a learning disability. That makes a lot of sense.". From my point of view, math was something that you either knew, or didn't know, and once you know it, it's easy. If you can't learn, of course math you already "learned" would be hard.
Well, I have since learned that A) this is not an appropriate way to talk to anyone, especially a girlfriend, B) apparently people don't learn in the same way as I do, especially for math, and C) that this is a way rich people game the system, not that she actually had a learning disability.
Anyway don't call your girlfriend retarded.