HOW TO LEARN

How To Learn To Write A Novel
How To Learn To Dance
How To Learn To Make A Living Online
How To Learn To Skateboard  

Search This Site

 Learning Math

<

Why can’t I learn math?  Or why is it that I find math difficult?  These are some of the questions youths often have with regards to their math skills.  It can be frustrating to say the least, but learning math doesn’t have to be a difficult thing at all.

The reason some people excel at math and others do not isn’t understood fully. Questions of gender, age and heredity sometimes are used to describe the ability of people to learn math.  However, math like any other subject is something that must be acquired.  It truly is a skill, but it is one that anyone can master with practice.

Myth#1: You can’t memorize math.

How often have you heard this?  Math isn’t something you can memorize.  The fact is that memorization is key to being successful at learning math.  But someone can argue that the ability to solve “problems” isn’t something that can be memorized.  Again this is incorrect.  Learning math and solving problems are in fact dependent on your ability to memorize.

As a Biology student I often excelled in courses that depended on one’s ability to memorize.  I also did poorly at calculus and other mathematical courses.  I believe now that the reason was my lack of understanding on how to succeed in these courses.  This was validated years later when I re-enrolled in advanced math courses and came out with astonishing results.  In a minute I will share with you how to do this.

My calculus marks the first time round were 53 for Calculus I (yes this was a passing grade when I went to school) and 64 for Calculus II.  I retook both courses several years later and achieved 100 for Calculus I and 89 for Calculus II. I also took a general math course in Algebra, with trigonometry, and logarithms and achieved another 100 score.  In addition, I always did badly in physics course (like Electricity and Magnetism, Mechanics and Wave Motion), but I was able to turn this around and pull off an A in each course..  How did I do it?  There were two underlying techniques.

Technique #1

I used memorization techniques to memorize formulas, not unlike the techniques I show you on this website.  What I found is that by memorizing formulas I was able to also grasp understanding.  It’s hard to describe, but unless you memorize formulas it is difficult to understand how to apply them.  Even if the teacher says you don’t need to memorize the formulas (because it’s an open book test) – ignore him – you should memorize the formulas and be able to write them down at will without a book or note pad.  Once memorized, your brain will begin to work on understanding the formula internally, even when you are not consciously thinking about it.  It is important to tie the definition of the formula, and any assumptions along with the memorization of the abstract series of letters and numbers.

Technique #2

The second technique involved doing problems.  Yes they are boring, difficult and not something you want to spend your afternoon doing.  In reality, the problems you find at the back of a chapter are indeed very critical.  Do them all!  Yes even the bonus questions.  Why?  Because this is a sampling of the type of problems associated with a chapter.  What you will find is that all problems presented with a chapter fall into distinct types.  When you come to an exam – if you’ve done enough of the math problems – you should be able to recognize the problem you did and you should be able to apply the same structure to solving the test exam problem.  What if you don’t know how to do a problem at the back of the book?  See the teacher, professor or a tutor about helping you with it.  Yes even if it’s only one problem.  Don’t skip it simply because you don’t know how to do it.  Chances are the same type structure will be included in the exam!

>

Site Map »

Media package available for advertisers looking to advertise on this site.