How about "This isn't a test, it's a practice sheet. That means it's supposed to be on things where you might get them right and you might get them wrong. If you get them *all* right, I've made a mistake by making it too easy for you, so I hope you'll get a few wrong."? Maybe not exactly that, but it does sound as though you might need to put clear water between you and her and the idea that making mistakes is bad.
Oh, no, the thing is, she's never been in school and has no experience with or knowledge of tests other than that I find a list of questions on the internet and we snuggle up and go through them together. Sometimes we do SAT practice questions (for my own amusement) or some other random thing (again, for my amusement) and she's totally fine with guessing/not knowing. Or she does medical questions with her dad, when he's studying for the boards, and she has absolutely no problem getting things wrong in that context. We've also done the if-you-get-them-all-right-that-means-its-too-easy thing, for years now, because she used to be shy about reading. And she's definitely seen both me & her dad making plenty of mistakes on tests and not throwing huge fits or feeling badly about ourselves.
We did discuss it last night, and she said she thinks she's bad at math. Sigh. I tried to explain that the only reason I'm better than her is because I've been practicing for years & years, and that if she practices she can be even better than I am, but she doesn't buy it. She also said she doesn't like math because it makes her brain hurt.
And then this morning she woke up before me, climbed into bed, and asked me, "Is 3 even or odd?" I mean, she's known the answer for years, but it still shows that she's thinking about math.
Incidentally, does
See Inside Math really have the error reported in
the Amazon reviews? That's appalling, if so.
LOL! I didn't actually read it myself, so I couldn't tell you. I'll try to remember to take a look the next time we go to the library.
