Strongest Subject in School

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

Which subject was/is your strongest in school?

For me, math has always been my strongest, and I got an 800 on the SAT Math.  I also liked social studies and most science classes, but I despised English class.                                             


Interestingly, the vast majority of people I know who like politics do not like math/numbers, though I got interested in politics partly because of the statistics involved in it.  I love messing around on Excel with data sets of each state's voting, finding standard deviation,    long term trends, etc.                                                     

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

Our school has a debate class and a debate team.  I never took the class but am on the debate team.

I did policy debate in 9th/10th grade, but honestly, I wasn't that interested in policy because the issues weren't exactly hot-button and the debates were more about your pre-prepared evidence than anything else.  Next year I'll probably do LD or PFD debate which seem more interesting.


Politically, our debate team is a mixed bag, but it definitely leans liberal, with several conservatives, including one rock-ribbed conservative Republican atheist (quite rare) who loves to bash Al Gore. 

I'd consider myself centrist or slightly left of center(used to be more liberal, but I changed my mind on a lot of issues, especially economic ones) and it's amazing how closed minded some of the liberals are.  For example, there was a bus stop on the way back, with Chipotle and Chick Fil A.  The liberals said that you're an idiot if you go to Chick Fil A and said they were homophobic or expressing an opinion on gay marriage.  I said respectfully that Chick Fil A has the right to express it's opinion and they aren't evil for feeling a certain way on a controversial issue, and that comment made some think I was super Republican, even though I have no problem with gay marriage.  When I said Citizens United was no big deal and wasn't a mortal threat to democracy(this was a PFD topic, and I was providing advice), that also made liberal friends angry.  I often counter-debate the far-left people on the team, even if I agree with them, because it's fun to see their responses.

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

Art.

Oh God, I was SO BAD at Art...

Ditto.  I wager with 99% certainty I would get a higher GPA as a math major than a basket weaving major.  I just can't do art.

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

I did policy debate in 9th/10th grade, but honestly, I wasn't that interested in policy because the issues weren't exactly hot-button and the debates were more about your pre-prepared evidence than anything else.  Next year I'll probably do LD or PFD debate which seem more interesting.

Politically, our debate team is a mixed bag, but it definitely leans liberal, with several conservatives, including one rock-ribbed conservative Republican atheist (quite rare) who loves to bash Al Gore. 

Policy has always been... odd... I've done Congress and have experimented with PFD, both of which seem a lot more like actual debate than policy is.

Our debate team breaks down by event; LD kids are definitely more liberal, the policy kids are more Obama-backing than anything, PFD kids seem center-left overall, and Congress is the most conservative event (at least one or two conservatives and two libertarians, myself included).

Interesting.  Our school doesn't allow a debate team member to do just Congress.  They have to do it in conjunction with PFD or LD (policy people always stay in policy).  My policy partner was an independent conservative and so was the policy coach.  The atheist conservative I mentioned also debates policy.  Most of the rest weren't attentive to political matters. 

LD is pretty much all liberal at our school with 1 conservative.

PFD kids are also liberal, but this is by far the most popular, so views are mixed.

The coaches, however, are all conservatives.

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

In high school I got A's in everything, except Physics which was an honors class anyways and as such my B counted as an A for GPA purposes. So I can't say that I really had a strongest subject at that level - usually I just had favorite classes due to the teachers or subject matter.

Oh gosh, I'm in 10th grade and Honors Physics is a ****ing bear.  I have 0 problems with math/chemistry but physics is really difficult.  I have a 95%, but tha'ts because 2/3 of our grade is homework, otherwise most of the class would be failing.

We get a college level textbook, work from a college level test bank and we go at a super-fast pace(about 12 chapters a semester).

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

I'm surprised by people who chose "Math" as their worst and "science as their best.

I'm only in 10th grade, and the science classes I'm taking (Honors Chem, Honors Physics) definitely require you to be pretty good at math.  Chem is fairly easy, but I find the Honors Physics problems we get (from the AWFUL Serway College Physics textbook) to be excruciatingly difficult and more involved than any precalc problem I've ever had. 

Heck, I qualified for the AIME/received an 800 on the SAT math and I still think Honors Physics is really really hard. 

How could someone do well in physics without being super good at math/problem solving? 

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

Best: History
Worst: Math (especially trigonometry and algebra)

add Science to the best and that's mine...

Wait, would that count physics, because physics is essentially half math. (Speaking of which I know an freshman who took college math as an 8th grader and took physics and chem before earthscience

Just one? At our school?

I would find it very difficult to believe that a person who was bad at math would be strong in college-level physics, since the latter is uses the techniques of the former in very difficult applications(at least in the Serway book).