I had a horrible math block most of my life. Add in that my mother was a University Math Professor and it was just a real joke in elementary school. Whenever she taught me tricks that made sense I got in trouble for using them. On the other hand she told me that after seeing what I went through and my issues it changed the way she taught math - many of her students were studying to be elementary school teachers and hated math.

I used to also work for a company were we graded students essays and I usually could do what you could do and deconstruct what they had meant to do. I often did this the season I worked at the IRS too. Unfortunately this was often not an acceptable way of dealing with the forms or papers. *sigh*