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This is very true. Having taught remedial math courses many times (now sworn off from that one), I have found that for many students who believe that they are not good at math it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I myself must rather have been an exception ;). </p>
<p>That said, I personally believe that any student (well pretty much) who can manage to get themselves into college can manage to get through basic algebra, and a basic non-theory calculus course. Harder to convince them of that.</p>