calculator that works out area?

exhashdotdot said:
It doesn't sound like you have the right attitude to pass this exam.

Learning a couple of formulas is the easy bit. Be happy you aren't deriving them.
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WTF do you know about me? I don't need to derive, i don't NEED to this exam. I WANT to do it and having paid to do it, of course i have the right attitude and drive to WANT to pass.

However, as it is a weeks study and then the exam, i looking for as much assistance as i can get.
 
JonJ678 said:
For a triangle, it can always be considered as half a rectangle. Or rearranged into half a rectangle. So here the problem is working out which two distances you use, I'm fairly confident it's always the longest side times the distance from that side to the opposite corner, halved.
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I don't really get this explanation. Triangles are always just:

half the base * the height. The height is literally how tall the triangle is. Height is not necessarilly = to the length of an edge.

ivrytwr3 said:
WTF do you know about me? I don't need to derive, i don't NEED to this exam. I WANT to do it and having paid to do it, of course i have the right attitude and drive to WANT to pass.

However, as it is a weeks study and then the exam, i looking for as much assistance as i can get.
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I'm not trying to be disrespectful. But take it from me, you should be worrying less about what calculator you should buy and more on the intuition you need to work through the exercises.

You will remember these equations after revising a few questions.
 
exhashdotdot said:
I don't really get this explanation. Triangles are always just:

half the base * the height. The height is literally how tall the triangle is. Height is not necessarilly = to the length of an edge.

.
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I saw this as one way of doing the sum. Treat it like a rectangle ie LxW and then just half the answer.
 
ivrytwr3 said:
WTF do you know about me? I don't need to derive, i don't NEED to this exam. I WANT to do it and having paid to do it, of course i have the right attitude and drive to WANT to pass.

However, as it is a weeks study and then the exam, i looking for as much assistance as i can get.
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You are saying you want the qualification, not the knowledge/understanding

Pretty much sums up whats wrong with the entire education system today.

:o
 
ivrytwr3 said:
I saw this as one way of doing the sum. Treat it like a rectangle ie LxW and then just half the answer.
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It's because two identical triangles stuck together will always make some kind of quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel edges. It's a good way to remember the method to calculate the area. :cool: This will also indicate how to calculate the area of a parallelogram.
 
Angleboy said:
You are saying you want the qualification, not the knowledge/understanding

Pretty much sums up whats wrong with the entire education system today.

:o
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You're exactly right. As soon as i pass (if) i will dump all the stuff in my head required for this exam.

I have been in the same job for 17 years, am working my way up the ladder and have never needed any of the stuff i am currently revising and in my line of work, never will.
 
My point was that height is a vague term. The distance from the longest side to the point opposite is the "height", but if the triangle's drawn in an unusual orientation then height wont be as obvious.

Generally the triangles you're shown in the exam will have one side parallel to the base of the page, making height intuitive, but if none of the sides are parallel to the base of the page and you've memorised base * height then it might throw you.

Does that help? I'm used to maths being obsessively precise so I'm not sure how to define terms. Are you familiar with the following words?

Perpendicular (angle of 90 degrees between the lines)
Parallel (the lines will never meet however much longer you make them)
Perimeter (the total distance around the shape)
Circumference (perimeter of a circle)
Radius (distance from centre of a circle to the edge)
Pi (a number, equal to 3.142. Turns up all over the place when circles are involved)

With the triangle, I mean the minimum distance from the longest side to the point, not the length of either of the other sides. This distance is also perpendicular to the longest side.
 
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ivrytwr3 said:
You're exactly right. As soon as i pass (if) i will dump all the stuff in my head required for this exam.

I have been in the same job for 17 years, am working my way up the ladder and have never needed any of the stuff i am currently revising and in my line of work, never will.
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Rubbish.. I bet you have. People use maths everyday without realising it.
 
JonJ678 said:
I'm used to maths being obsessively precise so I'm not sure how to define terms. Are you familiar with the following words?

Perpendicular (angle of 90 degrees between the lines)
Parallel (the lines will never meet however much longer you make them)
Perimeter (the total distance around the shape)
Circumference (perimeter of a circle)
Radius (distance from centre of a circle to the edge)
Pi (a number, equal to 3.142. Turns up all over the place when circles are involved)
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Ah, that's a fantastic summary for GCSE maths. I think tangents might come up as well but I can't remember.
 
ivrytwr3 said:
You're exactly right. As soon as i pass (if) i will dump all the stuff in my head required for this exam.

I have been in the same job for 17 years, am working my way up the ladder and have never needed any of the stuff i am currently revising and in my line of work, never will.
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Don't you just.. want to know though?

I mean, doesn't the idea of being able to tell someone else how to work out the area of a 2D shape sound kind of appealing, especially as you need to learn it all anyway?

I do struggle a little to understand peoples aversion to just learning something new.

At the age of 45 my dad went from being a bobby on the beat of nearly 30 years to the head of his constabularies ANPR department. He did this by effectively doing everything from A-Levels to HNDs, he left school with only a few GCSEs.

My grandparents both completed BSc's, my grandfather completed an MSc and half completed a PhD after retiring (decided it was costing too much).

Being 40 has absolutely no bearing on your ability to learn how to calculate the area of a circle.

Also, as has been said, a calculator that works out the answers (effectively the same as taking a sheet of paper with the answers into the exam) will not be allowed, and unless you are taking the exams at a very lax place, they will check.
 
JonJ678 said:
My point was that height is a vague term. The distance from the longest side to the point opposite is the "height", but if the triangle's drawn in an unusual orientation then height wont be as obvious.
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Dude you're confusing things. For example in a right angled triangle that is not the case. A line from the hypotenuse to the point opposite is not the 'height'....
 
manic_man said:
Don't you just.. want to know though?

I mean, doesn't the idea of being able to tell someone else how to work out the area of a 2D shape sound kind of appealing, especially as you need to learn it all anyway?

.
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Hoenstly? No. I have survived this long without knowing it, i think i'll be ok for a few years after! Lol!!
 
If you really don't care, just learn the formulae. There are what, 4 or 5 at most? Just write them out a few times...
 
maybe you should just learn the formulas, you have the same attitude as a kid doing his GCSE's.

Come on man your going on 40, step up to the plate, it really is basic stuff.

edit: having done it ages ago, i guess i have the opinion now that it is very easy, but i find it hard to comprehend how you arnt just able to memorise simple stuff.
 
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Please stop the bashing. I'm asking for help, and if the help is explaining the best way to remember the formulae then great, i'll take it on board.

But saying that I'm nihilistic when i want to brain dump the stuff after the exam is a bit OTT.
 
ivrytwr3 said:
Hoenstly? No. I have survived this long without knowing it, i think i'll be ok for a few years after! Lol!!
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I stumbled through my GCSEs and A-Levels convincing myself I didn't need any of it.

Thankfully I also then stumbled into a University (and I do mean stumbled both literally and metaphorically) and some sort of weird transformation came over me. Who cares if I NEED to know this stuff or not, it's the things we do in life that we don't need that make it worth living.

I don't NEED this glass of Wine, nobody NEEDED to make it, I'm damn glad they did they though.

Who knows, you might end up in front of a client in a few years time and for some reason being able to work out the area of a shape of some kind might be useful. Many people wouldn't be able to do this off the top of their head (I have to look up some 3D shapes...) It could be something silly like it comes up at a dinner party, who knows. Either way though, you knowing that fact will be an advantage for you.

People like Stephen Fry (to use a popular example) are undoubtedly clever individuals, but I have always maintained much of that is simply because they have a personality which means they don't look at things and think "do i need to know this? No? OK then don't bother me with it" they just find things out because they can.

OK, I'm going to shut up, I think I've been spending too long trying to convince undergrads they will benefit from learning things today and its rubbing off here!
 
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