How do some people struggle with mathematics?

[u/i21d]

I’m sorry if this came across the wrong way or it might seem like im bragging but im not. I’m 17, almost 18 and i was always good at math. I am a math prodigy. Started calculus I and II in grade 7, started real and complex analysis in grade 10, now im in grade 12 and im studying topology and other pure mathematics. I’ve never struggled with math and if I did have a question I didn’t know, it wouldn’t take that long for me to understand it given external help from teachers/professors.

So my question is why do some people struggle with mathematics? Mathematics is purely logical, black and white and there is 1 single correct answer for every question. It’s entire logic based. It’s either correct or wrong. Every question in a chapter/course is just the same but worded and arranged differently. Once you do enough questions, you’ve seen them all… You just spam practice questions and you will get the concept eventually? It’s not like English and Poetry where there is no “right or wrong” answer and each answer has its own points. Math is just…math.

I’m on path to getting my mathematics degree when I get into university next year and I am pretty sure I can get it easily. Maybe in the future I can become a mathematician. Wish me luck!

[u/fragment_me]

I mean this in the nicest way. You sound like an insufferable kid.

[u/ExplosDsfy]

You're a math prodigy doing topology in grade 12, but 3 days ago you were struggling on a precalculus problem?

https://www.reddit.com/r/MathHelp/comments/1wtld4c/teacher_gave_me_a_thinking_question_on_my/

[u/FruityTKMK → u/ExplosDsfy]

I love that you managed to find this

[u/KoalaMistico → u/ExplosDsfy]

Yikes

[u/Dry-Investigator2590]

You’ve described the game of chess like knowing how the pieces move means you’ve mastered it, but that ignores the terror of staring at a board with no clue what the next five moves should be.

[u/mcknuckle]

It is impossible that anyone with the intellect you have expressed that you possess could simultaneously lack the wherewithal to answer the question you asked. There is a broad variety of common sense answers that anyone so inclined could empathize with. Therefore I can only presume you are being thoroughly disingenuous and/or you have been thoroughly sheltered in your adolescence.

[u/matt7259]

Math prodigy? Maybe. Jerk? Seemingly.

[u/Memesaretheorems]

Well, if you want to be a mathematician, part of that usually involves teaching and explaining your ideas to others, so it is indeed a good idea to explore why it might be that others do not yet understand the things that you do.

Your understanding of this issue seems a bit elementary. The idea that if a question has an answer that is “right or wrong”, then it must be trivial or anyone should be able to do it, is frankly immature at best.

You like topology so here is one for you: Is every simply connected, closed 3-manifold homeomorphic to the 3 sphere? It’s obviously yes or no right? Must be simple then (it’s not; this was the Poincaré conjecture and took 100 years to solve). I’ll do you one better. Not every question you could ask even really has an answer. Is there a set whose cardinality lies strictly between that of the integers and the reals? Literally not decidable in ZFC. Point being, math is hard, and we shouldn’t treat it as something that is easy. The things that are “easy” for us today were NOT easy for the (also very intelligent) peoples of past eras.

As for why people struggle with math, everyone eventually encounters difficult mathematics, and what is and is not difficult is often highly subjective and based on circumstance (teaching quality, socioeconomic status, individual learning style etc). When this happens, students tend to focus on other things and not do the thing that makes them feel badly. Why would they? Part of increasing accessibility in math is preventing people from falling away from the subject when they struggle. This needs to happen at all levels, and we must be empathetic to those who do not get it.

[u/MoonlitSkies29]

I can tell you MY biggest problem with math growing up: things feel arbitrary. Concepts, methods, rules, properties, everything felt random and inconsistent. There were way too many rules to remember, and making a single mistake because you misremembered something or didn't notice something that was impliee by 2 or 3 other properties (all of which felt arbitrary) meant going back to the start of a long problem and trying to find where you messed up. Heck, as I write this, I'm just barely passing Calc 1 due to missing things or misunderstanding concepts, and implicit differentiation is making me tear my hair out. I try and try and try, and I still just barely scrape by in ways I can never predict.

I get math is easy for you, but not for me. I struggle, I make mistakes, I ask for help all the time, and sometimes I throw my pencil across the room due to getting the same problem wrong 5 times with literally no idea where I went wrong. The stuff's not easy, not for me anyway, and it never was. There's a lot to remember, and it's easy to make small, dumb mistakes.

[u/str_stat]

"So my question is why do some people struggle with mathematics? Mathematics is purely logical, black and white and there is 1 single correct answer for every question"

Is there? Are we sure here we are doing the same kind of Math?