As some of you know, I've returned to school to earn my bachelor's degree. I'm currently taking algebra and I'm awful at math. Can anyone recommend a website or a book that may help me? I'm a math moron, honestly. I just need to get throught this darn class without going insane (hey, I heard that, I was not insane before this class).

What about http://www.mathgoodies.com ? I find it very useful.

What are your difficulties with Algebra? Can you be a little more specific as to your problems, then maybe we can help?

Agreeing with Tiel -get stuck in on the course and if you get stuck with a question tell us what it is and we'll try to help (with emphasis on the try! ).

I'm having an extremely rough time with intergers and rational numbers. I can't get the hang of what makes one number an integer AND a rational number and another number just a rational number. Grrrrrr.

IQ,

I am glad you started with a relatively easy one

An integer is simply a whole number. -1, 7, 1001, 0, are all integers- they are also all rational numbers.

A rational number is one that can be expressed as a fraction, where both numerator and denominator (the top and bottom bits) are integers. Examples are 1/2, -16/9, 6/2(=3, also an integer), 1/10.

An irrational number cannot be expressed this way, and are usually written in decimal format. They have no finite ends in this format. Things like 'pi'.. 3.14159 ad nauseum...., square root of 3, 'e' (the basis for natural logarithms- approximate value is 2.71828)... all fit in this category.

I hope this helps.

That helps a great deal. My math prof has a problem putting things in plain English. Thanks for translating that little bit of mathese (it's a word becuase I say it is) for me. I may bet through this class with what little sanity I had still intact.

I will waive my usual exorbitant tutorial fees, but only because it is Christmas..

Good luck, mate!

Just to poiny out a small mistake in Ozzz's work...
An Integer is not always a whole number.

Whole number- 0,1,2,3,4,5 and so on.
Integer : All negative numbers as well as whole numbers.
Hence -4 will be an integer but not a whole number whereas 4 will fall in both categories.

Just to add:
Official Definition of a rational number: A number of the form p/q where q is not 0 and p & q are integers.

Please note that all integers are rational numbers as q=1 in that case.

Ok, here's my newest delema. I have to graph inequalities. My head hurts and I'm getting cranky. The instructor has told us that we don't need to submit the actual graph as it would be difficult to upload the file. but,he'd like us to post the slope and other relevant material. I don't know what I just said, does anybody else?

Are these inequalities like '4x+3y>7' and 'x-3y<2'? These are quite simple to learn.

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Are these inequalities like '4x+3y>7' and 'x-3y<2'? These are quite simple to learn

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Uh Oh .. people really are speaking different languages to me.

Some are like that. Others are more like this: y>3 X>_7

I can't do the symbol for greater than or equal to on my keyboard, so the one for X is X is greater than or equal to 7.

It's my understanding that any number will work as long as the inequality remains true. Is that right?

Ok here goes ( assume ? denotes greter then equal to)

(We will consider the same problem y>3x?9 (I made 7 into 9 for simplicity)

Break the problem into two parts:
1)y>3x
2)3x?9 which becomes x?3


a) Now first plot y=3x
This will pass through the origin with slope =3.
(Slope = -a/b if the equation is ax+by=c and this is 3x-y=0 so a=3 and b= -1)

b) Now since we need to plot y>3x and not y=3x ..this will be the entire region on one side of the line. To find out which side.
Take ANY point which does not lie on this line ( like x=5, y=5)
Since this does not satisfy y>3x as 5 is not>15....The required region will be the entire region on one side of y=3x not containing (5,5).

c) Now we are left with x?3. So again by the same procedure you get the region on the right side of the line x?3 (but also include the line itself as we have ? and not >).

d) Now take the intersection of the two regions. PROBLEM SOLVED

Ozz - Copago has hit the nail on the head - I haven't a clue what these people are talking about - this isn't the mathematics that I learnt at school. We learnt Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry
9 + (27+9+19+8)+ (27+9+19+8) =
(8+1+16+16+25) + (3+8+18+9+19+20+13+1+19)

But that's LOGIC (they didn't teach me that at school!) and it only adds up one way!!

Thank you so much for all of your help guys. I really appreciate it. This class has me feeling like an idiot. I'm letting a bunch of numbers make me feel inferior. Grrr, I shouldn't be so high strung about it.

They still don't teach that stuff at school Fosse, unless you take up the science field.