Struggling With Science Courses - Need Advice

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I'm a freshman in college now, but first, a little background. This is long but I deeply appreciate any insights you all might have on the matter:</p>

<p>Going through the grade school system I was largely successful in the sciences. In fact, everyone pegged me as a very science-y and math-y person. I was always the one who didn't need to ask questions to do well (though I did anyway, but the questions I asked were things that the teacher always admitted he/she didn't know) and it all seemed to come very naturally to me. All of the way through middle school it was expected by everyone, including myself, that I would enter some kind of science field.</p>

<p>In high school my mindset shifted drastically and I became much more interested in the humanities and other non-science disciplines. I really engaged myself in my English classes in particular and really enjoyed them. This isn't to say that I didn't feel that I still had science talent...Despite doing poorly in Biology, my issue in that class was that I didn't hand in any of the labs (that were like 40% of our grade). I always did excellently on the tests, and I did very well in the Computer Science courses I took that year. Sophomore year Chemistry was a breeze and I scored one of the highest grades in the class.</p>

<p>This was all true up until about my senior year of high school. I struggled a little bit in Physics during junior year but for those that know my story (I'm not expecting any of you to) that was very likely attributable to the fact that as academics went in general I really stopped caring during that year. Despite my senior year not being very successful due to various factors, I put significant effort into the AP science classes I was taking, specifically AP Chemistry and AP Physics.</p>

<p>But it was disastrous.</p>

<p>In AP Chemistry, the class always seemed to know what it was doing when I had no idea. We went through various subjects and in every single one of them the class seemed to have insights that I had no clue about. They'd just know the names of compounds off the top of their head and seemed to intuitively be able to predict the outcomes of chemical reactions. The problems from the book didn't seem particularly hard but whereas I'd spend 15 minutes figuring out what to do they'd be done with the entire problem set in under half an hour. I'd ask my classmates during or after class what it was we were supposed to actually do and they'd act as clueless as me, but when the tests came they got A's and I got D's. And these were the same people I was tutoring back in sophomore year!</p>

<p>It literally felt like I had entered a time warp and somehow ended up in a level 3 chemistry class after skipping level 2. It was like I had missed an entire year of instruction, but I know this wasn't the case.</p>

<p>I ended up dropping AP Chemistry.</p>

<p>In AP Physics I did no better but at least felt a little better about myself. There were 10 people total in my AP Physics class and all of us agreed that our teacher, while a very cool person, was really bad at teaching. Plus, our book (which is apparently one of the better ones) had problems that to all of us seemed practically impossible. Each individual homework problem seemed to take half an hour (unless it was REALLY simple) and involved complex logical connections. Ironically enough, I ended up being instrumental to my class' success because I found a copy of the solutions manual which ended up circulating the class allowing everyone to actually do the problems. Our teacher was actually okay with this.</p>

<p>But despite everyone's problems with the homework, I once again was in the bottom 10% of the class when it came to the tests. Every once in a while I would miraculously see my score spike for a particular test and beat the rest of the class but this was truly an anomaly for which I have yet to find an explanation. For the most part, I got C's or lower on every single test. Once again I'd ask people for help and they'd all claim to be just as clueless as me, yet they all got at least B's whereas I was struggling just to pass.</p>

<p>I eventually finished out high school as home school, and now I'm at Penn State University Park.</p>

<p>I was admitted to UP under the college of the Liberal Arts because I was originally intending to go Philosophy/Political Science. But then I decided that I actually wanted to get a job (no offense to all you LA majors! I love you all!) and decided that I would once again foray into the sciences. "College is a clean slate," I thought to myself, "and PSU was originally my safety school so I really should be at the same level as everyone else academically." When I took my placement tests I couldn't remember much chemistry from my sophomore year but I could tell the problems were very elementary and I still scored highly enough to place into the highest entry-level chemistry course at PSU. So I decided to start taking courses that would put me on track to a major in the sciences, specifically biochemistry because that interested me the most. I took regular Biology, Honors Chemistry and Experimental Chemistry (chem lab). I took the honors chemistry because I needed an honors course (for honors college requirements) and it was the only honors course available at the time I registered for courses. I was also very interested in Chemistry and really wanted to use this opportunity to dig into it and get a good understanding of it.</p>

<p>Well let's just say it's not exactly going as planned.</p>

<p>I love my professor, the course is highly interesting, but it's like AP Chemistry all over again. Everyone else seems to know a lot about Chemistry already and I don't even know what the terms they're throwing around mean. On the first quiz I actually beat the class average by 2% (the average was a 91%) but I'm pretty sure that's just because I seemed to be the only one in the class to actually memorize this table with metric prefixes that we ended up needing to know. The second quiz I flat out failed while the class average was a C. I spend hours on this course every day but when we get the quiz all my knowledge seems useless. They're take-home quizzes over the weekend done on the honor system (we're to set aside one hour to take it without looking at anything other than a periodic table) and I always make sure to follow this honor system. When the hour is up, though, I try to figure out the questions I didn't understand using the book (without making any changes to my quiz), and the book seems useless in helping me figure out the problems.</p>

<p>Just like in AP Chemistry, the rest of the class claims to hate these quizzes too but they're the ones actually passing the assignments.</p>

<p>I just don't know what to do. I see all of these people from my high school that are by and large considered to be worse at math/science than I am (and score worse than myself on the relevant tests like the Math section of the SATs) go on to major in things like engineering and they don't have any real problems, and here I can't even get by in an entry level chemistry class.</p>

<p>I don't know what my problem is. My first Chemistry exam is tomorrow and I feel like I need to fix this problem fast or I'm going to find myself in huge trouble when I really want to succeed in college.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance...</p>

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<p>This shows that you need to put in more effort and time into your classes. It seems that you have put in the same amount of effort into your elementary and middle school science classes as you did your high school classes. You can succeed with little effort in middle school, but not in advanced high school or college classes.</p>

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<p>That’s probably good advice, particularly the seeking help part. I try not comparing myself to others but it’s hard not to notice when every person sitting next to you is calling out answers and you hardly even know what the question means.</p>

<p>I haven’t really been going over “how good I WAS in science” in my head, but when I typed up the post I was being reflective and I found myself confused about where the change occurred.</p>

<p>Thank you for the advice though, I may very well seek tutoring or some such.</p>

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<p>That’s the thing though, at this point in time I put multiple of hours into chemistry per day. That’s what frustrates me. I mean if I were just showing up for class and then not acing the tests that’d be one thing, but I study loads for every Chemistry class and I still feel like I missed a year’s worth of instruction somewhere along the way. I did the same thing back in high school with AP Physics and AP Chemistry…I finished every single physics assignment (~30 problems) when each problem took me up to a half hour to do. I’m just baffled by how much trouble I’m having.</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses so far. I’m always looking for more advice and perspectives so keep them coming.</p>

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<p>What are your studying habits? Is it possible that your are only reading the textbook but not really processing the info and understanding the big picture and concepts?</p>

<p>Also since both chemistry and physics are math intensive courses, perhaps it is your math skill that is bringing you down in these areas?</p>

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<p>Math, Science, and just about anything in High school is very easy. In college, it actually starts to get hard (any subject, really). A lot of people ace Physics in HS, but how many would make it as Physics majors? not many.</p>

<p>Science majors aren’t that lucrative, unless you mean Engineering or Computer Science. Seriously, I’m a science major and most Chem/Bio/Physics/Neuro/Biochem majors I know don’t really know what the hell we’re gonna do after graduation, unless it’s Med/Grad/Dental school. What the hell are you supposed to do with a Chem degree anyway? Only on CC have I ever heard sci majors are lucrative. By “science majors” they mean Comp Sci and Engineering. Many science majors go into Finance, where they do well simply because they’re smart, but their major has little to do with it. </p>

<p>The lucrative majors are Economics, Finance and Business, so study those if you’re looking to make money. They’re relatively easy and lead to jobs. If a job is what you’re after, study Economics, not BioChem!</p>

<p>If you like Chem, stick it out and see how it goes, but Intro Chem is generally pretty easy - advanced courses are a lot harder!</p>

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<p>I think part of it might be anxiety/nerves. Good news is you DO get a fresh start, it is still early in the semester, and there are tons of things you can do.</p>

<p>Don’t be afraid to ask questions in class, or after class during office hours.
Try to get a study buddy or group going with your classmates.
See if your school has a tutoring center or tutors to help you.</p>

<p>And try to relax!</p>

<p>Sometimes, while studying/doing homework for a particular class, I will get stuck/confused beyond return. At that point im just getting worked up and wasting time. So instead of sitting and staring at the same page forever, I will do something else and come back to it later. Most of the time I can see more clearly what I was confused about or what I wasn’t getting before.</p>

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<p>As of right now I go through this process…Note that I have to do significantly less for non-chemistry/physics courses:</p>

<p>1) Read/Highlight chapter
2) Convert highlighted chapter into handwritten notes
3) Using notes and the chapter as reference, work through the recommended problems at the end of the chapter (if no problems are recommended by the prof I’ll do random ones in each section within the chapter).
4) Check the answers to each question in the back of the book or in the solutions manual.</p>

<p>The thing is, I usually work through the problems in the book (our Chemistry book) just fine even if I don’t get through them blazingly fast. But I can’t for the life of me figure out some of the questions that the prof asks on the quizzes, even after I’m done taking the quiz itself. They’re just different somehow. They require different forms of logical reasoning.</p>

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<p>Actually, interestingly enough, my math skills seems really high, and I’m talking about everything from addition to algebra to calculus. I’ve never had a problem with even high level math courses, in fact I found them quite fun and easy. I was talking with my friend about this problem I’m having and we came to the conclusion that as much of a contradiction that it seems to be, I’m good at math but bad at applied logic. That is to say, give me rules and I can manipulate them to answer your question, but give me a situation where specific words come with specific implications and I can’t connect the dots.</p>

<p>To put it another way, I can tell you that wood floats in water, but if you asked me on a test, “A furniture company sells chairs cut from the local trees with no extra materials added to the final product. If you put the chair in a pool with normal water density of 1g/mL, would the chair float or sink?” I would very likely be stumped. If you then explained the answer by saying, “The chair is made out of trees so it’s made out of wood, and wood floats in water,” then I’d likely respond with, “Well yeah, but how was I supposed to know that that was what you were getting at?”</p>

<p>Let me know if that’s still confusing. I have a hard time explaining it.</p>

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<p>That’s the thing, part of my concern comes with the fact that even in high school (taking AP classes) I felt like I was behind the curve. The same people I helped tutor in Sophomore year Chemistry were shouting out answers off the top of their heads that I had no clue how they got to. It literally felt like over the summer they all got together and took a full course on the stuff and now they were just in school rehearsing what they already knew.</p>

<p>I’m not implying that there’s some secret out there that other people have that I don’t that will magically make me good at Chemistry, I’m just trying to describe my situation.</p>

<p>And when I said I wanted to take a science because I wanted a job, I mean I know it won’t be lucrative per say but I think you’d agree that my job prospects are a lot better under BioChem than they are under, say, Philosophy?</p>

<p>Thanks again for the responses everyone.</p>

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<p>You are finding out what alot of kids learn when they go into science in college. </p>

<p>Most don’t make it out, they change their major to something else most of the time. The #1 failed classes at Universities is Chem and Bio classes. Kids learn that it takes alot more work then they are used to in high school to pass Chem and bio classes. </p>

<p>I took intro the Chem in college and the average score on Exams were like 60%. A 100 question exam over 4 chapters of Chem information is hard. But you have those students who are our future Doctors who will breeze through those courses.</p>

<p>College science is not for everyone. I can see your finding out</p>

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<p>@ Gutter - What wuroc15 said is absolutely true. It’s no coincidence that only 10% of preMeds make it to Med school and most Bio/Biochem/Chem/Physics/Neuro majors change their majors. However, i’m definitely not saying to change your major! I gave you Econ/Business as an alternative because you mentioned wanting a good job after graduation (and those majors are considered easier than Biochem). Anyway:</p>

<p>Go to office hours, talk to TA’s. Form a study group - there’s lots of people struggling in class, so maybe get together with 2-5 people and you can study together, explain things to each other you might not get on your own. For me, explaining things to other people really helps. </p>

<p>Don’t just read 50 straight pages of your Chem textbooks - read it SLOWLY and pause every couple of pages, think about it, maybe do a sample problem (there’s usually one in the margins). Pretend in your head you’re explaining a difficult concept to someone. Summarize the material to yourself every couple of pages. Don’t just read it blindly because you’ll forget. </p>

<p>Don’t read the chapter in order over and over! People tend to remember the beginning and end and forget the middle. The first time you read a chapter, read it beginning to end. Then go back and select random passages, and read a couple pages from there. If you’re re-reading a chapter, select a random passage in the middle and start from there - I remember learning this in HS Psych class, it works. :)</p>

<p>Also, it sounds like you’re having difficulty making connections (e.g your wood/float example). I’m not really sure how to address this, but another tip about not reading blindly: remember to provide examples to yourself when you read. Like if you were reading a passage about hydrolysis breaking polysaccharides into monosaccharides, think of examples (Glucose + Fructose = sucrose, sorry I can’t type out the symbols!) and explain it to yourself with the examples. This method of studying is slower, but more efficient. Learn concepts, never strive to memorize a ridiculous amount of info! </p>

<p>Basically, study actively rather than passively.</p>

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<p>Get some “help” books. I seriously have a huge stack of them.</p>

<p>One thing to keep in mind is that the subject is not impossible to grasp. Some people may just take longer, need more help, or have it better explained.</p>

<p>One of my favorite supplemental books are “The Cartoon Guide to ______” (they have them in most subjects, stats, physics, genetics, chemistry, environment, computers, etc.)
Which work extremely well for me since, a) it makes the subject somewhat more interesting, b) is hardly intimidating (I think most people tend to psych themselves out) and c) is great if you’re a visual learner.
Despite its name, it actually goes pretty in-depth into the subjects and is college-level.</p>

<p>I also like to get the “3000 Problems in _____” (Physics, Algebra, Calc, Linear Algebra, etc.) since the textbooks don’t have enough in there for me. </p>

<p>Before throwing in the towel, invest in some tutorial books and maybe visit a tutor.
You can’t learn anything if you’ve given up.</p>

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<p>If you’re going into science just because ‘you want to have a job’ you’re in for 4+ years of misery followed by a job you suck at. There is a difference between scraping by as a science major and actually putting in the work to be competent. From your description, apart from standardized tests (which prove next to nothing, sorry to say it), you’re not a math and science person, or at least you don’t seem to like it enough to put in the grueling work needed to succeed.</p>

<p>A science major is a calling, not a career move. You shouldn’t just look at the ‘*****in’ salaries of engineers after they graduate and decide that engineering/physics/chemistry is for you. True, science and math majors are very employable but there’s a reason even smart engineering and science majors are always stuck in the library on Friday nights. It’s work! And not ‘I have a 20 page paper to write’. It’s going over 200 problems before the test and finding out you misunderstood a critical theory. It’s getting to the end of a 5-page problem and discovering you misplaced a variable on page 2. It’s staying awake at 2AM on a Tuesday morning because you have a final in a week.</p>

<p>If you really do love science and these things sound reasonable in exchange for the value you get out of your education, by all means I’ll help you. Otherwise I’d change to a business major or something else in the Lib Arts. Science and math majors aren’t the only ones who are above poverty-level after college, you know.</p>

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<p>If all I cared about were money I’d have ended up in business pretty quickly. I stated a couple times in the thread that I actually enjoy the stuff and that I already am putting loads of work into it.</p>

<p>But I’d disagree with you on what exactly we’d consider the “work” part of science and on what separates science majors from the rest of majors. With the possible (POSSIBLE) exception of business, all majors or are a calling, not a career move. And to me, going over a 5-page problem only to discovered that you misplaced a variable on page 2 is merely an annoyance (particularly annoying as they go but still just annoying), as the public school system and computer science courses have done an excellent job of getting me used to this kind of situation. I think the far more frustrating part is banging your head against a wall for a week until you understand the concept covered in paragraph two of chapter 3 in your text =P. And you can be up at 2am on a Tuesday morning a week in advance for a final for any particularly challenging class, although I guess it tends to happen with sciences more often.</p>

<p>An update: I’m considering throwing in the towel and majoring in Math (not claiming it’s easier in principle, but comes naturally to me whereas science clearly doesn’t) with Scientific Applications. Such a major only requires the intro classes in each science discipline but I can take more of I decide to at a later date, and it would probably improve my problem solving abilities as well. Plus, Math is fun!</p>

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<p>I just want you to know that college has not yet started for me, so maybe I have a warped sense of how easy college courses should be. But I am pretty sure that from how much effort you are putting in, you should be doing well in your classes.</p>

<p>One setback may be your method of learning. It is not how MUCH you study, but HOW you study. Like someone above said, you may not be doing enough active learning. Highlighting, writing/transfering notes, etc. are ways of studying that involve repetition, which is not the most effective form of studying. Instead of only reading, highlighting, then note-taking, try to understand every single sentence in the book. Look at every picture and ask yourself if you understand what they present. After every paragraph or explanation of a major single concept, stop and retell it to yourself. Use the pretend-you-are-lecturing-to-a-class to really drill the fundamental concepts into your head.</p>

<p>Again, when you are transfering the highlighting to notes, you are passively learning. Instead try to use the outline in the table of contents in the book and write your own summary for each chapter. Include as much detail as possible and include all major concepts in your own words.</p>

<p>Also, I hate to say this, but the honor system may also be a setback your grades. I can pretty much guarantee you that there are some or many classmates who are not following it. They are getting higher grades and thus raising the average.</p>

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<p>Until you have taken a rigorous proofs class, you know NOTHING about true math. Just saying. I’d hold off on putting your premature enthusiasm into a subject you know little about. Try it, but to me you don’t seem like someone for whom it would come easily.</p>

<p>And not all majors are a calling. Business has a reputation as a ‘money major’ but English, languages, premed, and a whole host of other majors pay off rather handsomely in terms of effort vs salary. You misunderstand what I meant when I said ‘career move’ but your claim that every major is a calling is silly. The reason the sciences are a calling is because the amount of work you put in is very disproportional to what you get paid. Like the priesthood, if you will. In order for every major to be a calling is saying that every major is overworked and underpaid compared to the average major and that, my dear friend, is a statistical impossibility. You are going to have to put in much, much more effort and time for your math and science classes than your philosophy classes.</p>

<p>Like I said, go for it, but trust me on this, freshman; the difficulty of what you’ve seen isn’t even a tenth of what it’s like in upper levels. I’m hardly stupid and my first physics class was difficult, but not even close to what we’re doing now. And I have a 3.7+ GPA and do research, so it’s not like I’m talking out of my butt.</p>

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<p>Well, I was being a little facetious when I made my “Math is fun!” comment. But I mean how does anyone know whether or not math is the right field for them before actually taking courses in it? You can only go off of your past experiences, and to me AP Calculus came very, very easily. Is that high level? Not in the grand scheme of things. But what else can I base it off of?</p>

<p>Besides, my mother teaches math, so she’s taken some of that upper level stuff, and honestly it sounds interesting. What more can I go off of? I don’t expect it to be easy.</p>

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<p>I think we have different definitions of “calling”. I’d agree with you that it takes significantly less effort to get (let’s throw out some arbitrary numbers), say, a 3.0 while majoring in English than it does to get that 3.0 majoring in nuclear physics, but that’s only if you’re just looking for a degree and not an education. You can delve just as deep into English and literature as you can into Chemistry on a theoretical level, but they obviously require different ambitions and skill sets and aren’t really directly comparable.</p>

<p>So I’d agree that someone who just wants a reasonable GPA and a degree should go to something in the liberal arts if they don’t have the “calling” for science, but if we’re talking about excelling in the field you’ve chosen, other majors require just as much of a calling as the sciences.</p>

<p>In my opinion, anyway.</p>

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<p>You provide some very good insights in this post, and I appreciate it. It’s fully possible that whereas in the past I’d learn a science passively and it just “made sense” that now that I’m taking somewhat more advanced courses I really need to be more active in my study to truly grasp it all.</p>

<p>The other students not following the honor system thing I’ve thought of, but I feel like it’s sort of a “well, what can you do?” thing. I’m not one for high moral standards, but even if I had no qualms about cheating (and I do have them) I wouldn’t actually do it out of fear that somehow someone would find out and thus destroy my academic career.</p>

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<p>From reading your post, it’s obvious that other people in your class are cheating on these take home quizzes.

  1. 91% is too high of an average. Especially for a freshman chemistry class. I don’t care if this is honors chemistry at Harvard. And I doubt you’re at Harvard.
  2. You’re on the “honors system” which basically means everybody else in the class is copying off of someone because there’s nobody supervising.
  3. You claim you’re doing everything honestly. I believe you because that’s the only way you could possibly fail. </p>

<p>Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take your test (I hope for your sake its not take home), and you are going to stress about it for the whole time. Then you’re going to get it back and yes you did do as bad as you thought you would. Except guess what? So did everyone else.
Stop wasting time with outlining your chapters. Just do problems. Do them 3 times or more if you’re not getting it. Everything seems harder than it is when you aren’t succeeding, but the truth is general chemistry isn’t that hard.</p>

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<p>I’m in bio and chem courses right now. I’ve been doing fine in chemistry right now but we haven’t had our first exam. Biology is a struggle because its so boring. I’ve had the same material taught to me about 4 times now…my major was originally going to be biology but I really hate it lol. Maybe chemistry is another option…personally I just need to block out time to <em>read</em> the book. Like really read read not just skim which is what I have been doing. It’s worked so far but when we get further along I have a feeling that won’t help me much…<em>yanks out 50lbs chemistry book</em></p>

<p>Chemistry is kind of fun because it’s more of a puzzle than bio…there’s some memorizing involved but it’s more stimulating. I might think differently later on in the semester haha.</p>

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Part of what I see you doing, and its hard to explain exactly how its wrong but I sense it somehow, is that you’re trying to read the chapter the way you’d read a history book. In a history text you read and highlight key sentences, then might even summarize those in your own words. You can boil a 20-page section on the American Civil war down to a page or two of notes that will remind you of everything else. In Chem that won’t work. Just about every sentence matters, but you don’t learn it by memorizing. The sentences are about describing transformations and relations of compounds, and somehow you’ve got to see the bigger picture and realize the dense text is the particulars. </p>

<p>Learning Chemistry or Physics is more like learning to speak another language than it is learning something like History. Languages (and sciences) take hours of steady practice to learn. While you’re spending hours of time, it isn’t time spent effectively or efficiently. If you look on the web (search for “how to study chemistry”) you can find pages with tips. You might also talk to the prof and your TA about what she/he has found good students do, see if there is a study skills center at your school for help, etc.</p>

<p>The quickest way to improve is to get one of the problem solving books, such as “The Chemistry Problem Solver”. These have thousands of worked examples; you find the chapter related to what you’re studying, start with the 1st problem and cover up the answer, check your work, and it has the steps explained if you’ve got it wrong. </p>

<p>I think the difficulty you have with word problems shows that you’re not really attaching much meaning to the concepts; given an equation you can flip thru the chapter and find one that looks similar and manipulate it to get the answer, but when put into words you draw a blank. Given a chapter section that says “something floats in water if its density is less than 1g/ml” and a problem that says an object is X by Y mm and weighs Z, you’d be able to compute the density and answer if it floats. But the bigger concept hasn’t really sunk in. To go back to the example you gave earlier about the chair and will it float, the 1st question to ask is “how do I know if something will float?” That should clue you in to density. Then the next question you’d ask yourself is “what is the density of a wooden chair?”</p>

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<p>@mikemac, I completely agree. I got much more out of lecture and problem sets than I did sitting down and reading the text book trying to memorize.</p>

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<p>An <em>exercise</em> is a question that tests the student’s mastery of a narrowly focused technique, usually one that was recently “covered.” Exercises may be hard or easy, but they are never puzzling, for it is always immediately clear how to proceed. Getting the solution may involve hairy technical work, but the path towards solution is always apparent. In contrast, a <em>problem</em> is a question that cannot be answered immediately. Problems are often open-ended, paradoxical, and sometimes unsolvable, and require investigation before one can come close to a solution. Problems and problem solving are at the heart of mathematics. Research mathematicians do nothing but open-ended problem solving. In industry, being able to solve a poorly-defined problem is much more important to an employer than being able to, say, invert a matrix. A computer can do the latter, but not the former.</p>

<p>– The Art and Craft of Problem Solving, Paul Zeitz.</p>

<p>You can build up problem-solving abilities reading puzzle-books, belonging to a math team and working on problems, going through old math contests and talking about math problems with your peers. Of course this was stuff that would have been done at a younger age.</p>

<p>Zeitz talks about methodology and lore in math. The methodologies involve learning the material, processes and procedures and approaches for tackling problems without an obvious approach. The lore is about reading a ton of past problems, tricks and techniques. You might get a problem that is impossible to solve without some bit of math lore that you came across somewhere.</p>

<p>College professors, especially in science courses, like to give you problems that require a little bit more of a stretch. Sometimes the problem isn’t possible to do in a reasonable amount of time without knowing more than the prerequisites in the course. Sometimes the professor includes something in the news that he’s hoping that some in the class will be paying attention to.</p>

<p>It sounds like you are trying to do a lot of the right things but there is something missing. You indicated that it might be a language or logic problem - perhaps you haven’t had practice at trying to think out of the box. I’m sure that there are many others in the same position. I don’t know if there is a quick fix for this. It’s a kind of mentality in solving puzzles, playing with riddles, telling jokes and puns, learning theory and trying to answer the question of why?</p>