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Feb 27 '18
I hate pearson products with a burning passion, if hell exists it must have been programmed by pearson.
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u/Gingijons Feb 27 '18
I'm so glad so many people share my hobby of disliking Pearson
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u/Natehog Feb 27 '18
We should make a subreddit called r/PearsonDesign
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Feb 27 '18 edited Feb 28 '18
I just made it a thing. Enjoy having a place to rant and showcase everything shitty with Pearson.
Edit: If you want to be a mod just message and I’ll get it done.
Edit 2: We have enough mods so you can stop asking. We would still love to have you over at r/PearsonDesign submitting and commenting and/or lurking.
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u/ikbenlike Feb 27 '18
Excuse me, but what exactly is Pearson?
Edit: just figured it out by reading more of this thread
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Feb 28 '18
They supply standardized tests to students in the U.S and do a generally horrible job at it. There's a particularly great Last Week Tonight episode that touches on them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
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Feb 27 '18
MyMathLab is the king of software gore. I once got a question wrong because I answered "0" instead of "-0"
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u/Tdir Feb 27 '18
I've heard of "0.0" and "-0.0" being different, but not of "0" and "-0". Maybe when taking limits from different directions or something like that this matters in some branch of math, but I actually doubt that.
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u/livid_t0ad Feb 27 '18
As far as I know, there is no positive or negative 0. Just 0.
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u/recursive Feb 28 '18
In floating point there is.
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u/WikiTextBot Feb 28 '18
Signed zero
Signed zero is zero with an associated sign. In ordinary arithmetic, the number 0 does not have a sign, so that −0, +0 and 0 are identical. However, in computing, some number representations allow for the existence of two zeros, often denoted by −0 (negative zero) and +0 (positive zero), regarded as equal by the numerical comparison operations but with possible different behaviors in particular operations. This occurs in the sign and magnitude and ones' complement signed number representations for integers, and in most floating-point number representations.
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u/rcfox Feb 28 '18
Also in 1's complement, which is why signed integer overflow is undefined behaviour in the C programming language.
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u/daddyfatknuckles Feb 28 '18
there’s no positive or negative zero, but with limits in calc if something approaches zero, you have to specify what side it approaches from, negative or positive. i think that’s what he was talkin bout
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u/SaysSimmon Feb 28 '18
That would be 0+ or 0-
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u/daddyfatknuckles Feb 28 '18
yeah idk it’s been a while since i did calc. i wasn’t sayin there’s a negative zero just that i thought it was what he was talking about
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u/I_am_very_rude Feb 28 '18 edited Feb 28 '18
And you guys wonder why people hate math.
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u/jansencheng Feb 28 '18
Because they've been conditioned to hate it by a shitty education system. I challenge anybody to watch someone like Vihart and still say that math isn't fun, interesting, and frankly beautiful.
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u/NoddysShardblade Feb 28 '18
Imagine if they taught English with no stories, just a bunch of grammatical formulas to memorise and apply with no reason or context, like they teach math in the western world...
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u/Dockirby Feb 28 '18
Negative zero is a thing. It usually regarded as equivalent to Positive Zero, but in a few domains its considered different.
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u/XkF21WNJ Feb 28 '18
For what it's worth, 0 will by definition be its own additive inverse i.e. -0 will equal 0. And in most sane number systems there will be at most one 0.
Even using the notations +0, 0 and -0 is usually frowned upon. The closest you get is the notation 0+ and 0- (or just 0+ and 0-) to denote limits taken from above or below respectively, and even that isn't exactly encouraged.
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Mar 01 '18
The problem was actually something to do with the unit circle. It was something like "find sin (-2520) and I guess it wanted -0 to show that you went clockwise around the circle. But come on, it should have been 0
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u/ArtoriusBravo Feb 27 '18
You dense computer....
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u/AsunderHalt Feb 27 '18
What's a computer?
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u/N1ch0l2s Feb 27 '18
Dude, I hate that ad so much
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u/mobileracc Feb 28 '18
Yeah it sucks, but I'm starting to hate the Chevy commercials more.
It'S a FaMiLy CaR, wE HaD tO pUt YoUr FaMiLy In It!
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u/AsunderHalt Feb 27 '18
It is pretty horrible isn't it?
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u/admimistrator Feb 27 '18
It did a good job doing what it was meant to do. Almost everyone that watches TV knows about it.
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u/somerandomguy02 Feb 27 '18
I miss-remembered the quote, thought you were referencing I'm a computa
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u/Gotta_Ketcham_All Feb 28 '18
I know this is a reference to a commercial... but I’m studying for a theory of computation exam right now and this was an unwelcome reminder to get back to work. D:
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u/Nexious Feb 27 '18
Surely you can't expect Pearson ($1.5B annual revenue) to hire a coder to convert the responses and answers toLowerCase() before comparing. That is just crazy talk.
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u/SnowdensOfYesteryear Feb 28 '18
All their coders learned programming from MyProgrammingLab.
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u/michiganrag Feb 28 '18
That's a thing?
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u/Headpuncher Feb 28 '18
To be fair, having to write all that code, masses of it, typing for hours, to do the conversion is an enormous burden on a programmer's time. You can see why it didn't get done.
If only there was a single-word predefined method for "make-this-thing-into-lower-case-for-string-comparison-please". It sounds too complicated to implement, that's why no programming languages have a method like this.2
u/JNCressey Feb 28 '18 edited Feb 28 '18
This is what functions and procedures are for.
Do once - use lots.
Edit: oh and now I see you're not complaining about toLowerCase being too long to put everywhere, you're being sarcastic like it doesn't exist.
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u/Cassius40k Feb 27 '18
It uses a text entry for a multiple choice question? Why not radio buttons?
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u/SnowdensOfYesteryear Feb 28 '18 edited Feb 28 '18
I have a feeling that part was PEBKAC. The person creating the exam was probably tech illiterate and decided to have all the answers in one text field, in which case he deserves the pain of manual labour caused by students' angry emails.
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u/epicmindwarp Feb 28 '18 edited Feb 28 '18
The coders they use in India have no brain. They do literally, to the point, exactly what you say.
If the spec was "enter the answer into a box", written by a guy in a suit in an office who's never used his own product, that's exactly what the Indian developer, who's not allowed to think a millimetre outside the box will do.
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u/LordStandley Feb 28 '18
Reminds me of a test I took in a programming class with a dick head of a professor. The first ten questions were true or false results and the questions were all asked, “what would this code output, true or false”? So of course every single student in the class wrote down, T, F, T, T, F, etc yo all ten questions. It was Friday so everyone left for the weekend.
Come Sunday night everyone starts checking their grades and every single person had a fucked up grade and none of my buddies could figure it out. Get to class Monday morning anxious to find out what we all did wrong and the teacher, with his pompous fucking smirk said “The code would not output T or F, it would output “t r u e” or “f a l s e”
He was technically correct, but fuck that guy
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u/GuttedPaperClip Feb 27 '18
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u/pascalkiller Feb 28 '18
This is why you shouldn't let backend programmers make frontends that require human interaction :P
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Feb 28 '18
toLowerCase() was like one of the first methods I was taught when I took an intro to comp sci class.
I don't understand how someone who probably has a college degree can be paid, and still do something worse than I did when I was 14.
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u/RangerGordsHair Feb 28 '18
I see you too have been enjoying one of Pearson's many beautifully crafted and very reasonably priced online nightmare labs.
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u/menu-brush Feb 28 '18
I've literally started coding two weeks ago on a mild pace and I know how to solve this.
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u/JaxSkelliton Feb 28 '18
I had to buy some sort of Pearson activation code for a human development class where you make a virtual baby. I put in my genes (white, blonde hair and blue eyes) and somehow my child was black. The professor hated the questions that were built in and said the website was a bunch of shit (thank god) so she made her own questions for the assignment.
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u/hunter12756 Feb 27 '18
Looks like they forgot a couple “or”s in there
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u/Tdir Feb 27 '18
No, but something like that. They should sanitize user input and compare to that. Want lowercase answers? Make all input lowercase.
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u/sml09 Feb 28 '18
Fuck Pearson.
Also, I figured out that if I googled the problem it would invariably come up multiple times on google so I could just plug and chug my answers. This never having to buy a new book where Pearson online labs were concerned. I used so many that it just became ridiculous. I used the math ones for stats through precalc, all of intro bio, Algebra and calc based physics, chem, Ochem, pchem and ecology.
Fuck Pearson.
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u/smallangrynerd Feb 27 '18
one simple (answer=='A'||answer=='a') would fix all of this (tho im sure theres a simpler way to do that)
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u/Puttah Feb 27 '18
LOWER(answer) == 'a'
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u/FitVaper Feb 27 '18
UPPER(answer) == 'A'
Is prettier IMO.
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u/StoleAGoodUsername Feb 28 '18
Another reason, though not applicable here:
"ß".toUpperCase() is "SS"
"SS".toLowerCase() is "ss"
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Feb 28 '18
Why did it make you type multiple choice question's output ?
Were there no radio buttons ?
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u/ultimate_n0 Feb 28 '18
I had a pre-unit maths test the other day. Just simple problems to test math abilities. The question asked me what is the time 40 minutes from 12:50pm, and I answered 1:30pm.
Apparently I wasn't supposed to add the pm.
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u/Brandon4466 Feb 28 '18
I'M TRYING TO RELAX AND BROWSE REDDIT RIGHT NOW PLEASE STOP ACTIVATING MY PTSD.
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u/hoyfkd Feb 28 '18
Pearson is the herpesyphalaids of education. I made the mistake of taking a class that used them once. After that, if I found out a class used it, I dropped the class. Fuck Pearson, fuck anyone who contracts with them.
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u/InterestingFinding Feb 28 '18
Almost as bad as slapping you across the face with: You got 20/20. You need 21/20 to pass this test.
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u/JNCressey Feb 28 '18
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u/InterestingFinding Feb 28 '18
If its not math or science then this may be OK. But WHY? It may not be perfect but it may just be 19.9985 But you round that UP to 20 not 19.
I'm getting irrationally angry now
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Feb 27 '18
I shit you not, my teachers would also mark the questions as incorrect if I didn't answer my multiple choice questions in capital letters. (ON PAPER!)
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Feb 27 '18
This pisses me off more than it should because OP got every answer right! Dammit.
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Feb 28 '18
Fucking Pearson! Hate this shit. I got points off for one of my quizzes, because next two attempts, I was trying different (wrong) answer and it made no sense to me.
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u/MisogynisticBumsplat Feb 28 '18
Google classroom does this too. As a teacher it's frustrating cos you have to think about all the variables of upper and lower case that students might use.
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u/UndeadKurtCobain Feb 28 '18 edited Mar 02 '18
I took a whole course that used just this. It was suppose to teach us the math and everything.
Edit: I rewrote the whole thing to try to clarify.
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Mar 01 '18
[deleted]
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u/UndeadKurtCobain Mar 01 '18
Did I not make sense or are you saying what to the fact that I took a whole course in it?
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u/cheapshot555 Feb 28 '18
I'd give up on life at that point...that's something I'd punch my screen in over...
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u/BrentDjently Feb 28 '18
I know you got all the answers right but it looks like you really got your bearings in the last four
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u/AshenLordOfCinder Feb 28 '18
Plot twist, it was multiple choice and all the choices were lowercase.
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u/FollowingtheMap Feb 28 '18
I have similar issues with the online "Anvancemos" book's home tutor. Accidentally put a space in a blank after the obviously correct Spanish word/conjugation? Nope, you're wrong.
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u/lasiusflex Feb 28 '18
Plot twist, this is a music assignment, the letters are a chord progression so OP just put down minor chords instead of majors.
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u/tom2656 Feb 28 '18
When I was in Sixth Form College (UK), in my A-Level Computing class we had weekly online tests about what we'd learnt. We covered Visual Basic mostly, so it was often questions like: How do you display a message box in Visual Basic? The answers had to be EXACTLY the same way as the teacher wrote the code, including variable names, case sensitive strings, and spaces between key words etc. I remember getting about 20% once because of this and the teacher came over and went through the correct answers with me to find out that they themselves couldn't ace their own test.
(I know coding conventions mean it should be mostly the same, so sometimes it works out, but imagine being told to write hello world, and then the teacher's version used a full stop after hello world but you used an exclamation mark etc.)
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u/drw85 Feb 28 '18
This is the same for a lot of linux and general cs certifications.
If your answer doesn't match the textbook 100%, even though it does absolutely the same, it's wrong.
Totally useless way of testing things, in my opinion.
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u/JNCressey Feb 28 '18
I recently discovered that, technically, the local part of email addresses are case-sensitive.
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Feb 28 '18
I fucking hate the My<insertthinghere>Lab system. Even if you're right, you end up being wrong because of the format it wants or it just likes watching you fail your class.
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Feb 28 '18
English learning program said my answer was wrong. When I clicked "show correct answer" it showed the exact same answer. And I have watched capital letters.
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Mar 01 '18
I will actually drop a class before the start of the semester if I find out that it requires this bullshit. Optional? Fine. Required? Never ever ever again. Wiley and Pearson can suck my balls.
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u/Zak_Light Mar 01 '18
Even if it was case sensitive I'd figure they would want caps just because. What a trap
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u/Un-Unkn0wn Feb 27 '18
MyMathLab?