1 + 3= 5

I've long held a sort of perverse pride in the fact that with each passing day, I forgot more and more algebra and geometry, due mainly to absolute lack of use. Alas, my stupidity came back to haunt me, as I recently took the GRE test, the one you need to get into US and Canadian grad schools. And while I don't have my official final results yet, I did get an unofficial score on the computer I was tested on, and if those numbers hold, I think I am largely inept when it comes to math.

But not basic math that you use on a daily basis, mind you. That lot, the arithmetic and basic geometry, I'm clever enough at; it is more the algebra stuff that puts the whammy on me, to the tune of putting me only in the 60th percentile when it comes to math. That translates to me doing better than roughly 60% of all test takes in math, which sounds pretty ordinary to me, particularly in light of the fact that I scored in the top 1% for the verbal section.

I almost feel bad, especially since I studied up for weeks on the math sections (and very little of what I studied actually showed up on this test), but then I remember that I have used nothing beyond basic arithmetic at no point in my life. I have never had to figure relative areas for a cube and circle, and don't expect to at any point in the near future.

Of course, with my math being in such a sorry state of affairs, I may have misread my scores entirely, and confused my address with my math results.