You can find a video on the internet explaining any mathematical concept better than how your professor did. I am not joking in the slightest. If you don’t understand something, the professor/book probably could have explained it better, and you can find a video which does just that by just looking up the type of problem.
Limit what you work in your head. This is where mistakes happen. Write the problem itself down on scrap paper.
Kahn Academy is unironically really useful. Use it. It’s free.
The fundamentals of any mathematic discipline are more important than the advanced stuff. If you don’t have the stuff they taught at the start of the year down, you’re not going to see a good grade by the end of it. No, you cannot “just wing it”, because those fundamentals frequently connect to everything.
My study routine (I’m on honor roll and an AP kid so hopefully this helps)
Ask yourself what’s your starting point on what you want to study (this case math)
A. I have no fucking clue, I remember nothing
B. I remember a little bit, half or less maybe
C. I have a good grasp on everything.
If ur in A. Then go back and write out all of the concepts from the lesson and practice with questions related to that lesson before repeating this again. reviewing the lesson and practicing. Pretty much what ur doing is teaching yourself from the ground up. If ur having trouble with something watch organic chemistry tutor or Khan Academy.
B and C are similar. Write out as much as you know (make a list of concepts before hand or look at a test review) go back and check what you don’t know and write it down. For B you might have to go back and do some of the process of A but that’s okay.
Specifically for math unless ur a super genius you need to practice and repeat things over and over again until it becomes muscle memory.
Also takes breaks yeah. Also study in places where you don’t associate it with having fun. By my desk where my PC is? Nope. In my bed where I sleep? Also Nope. Also remove distractions.
Not in school anymore but what I did before was brute force until I forced myself to learn and remember. I did this for multiple hours and at the end I’d reward myself by playing Soul Calibur.
I barely check this site but a friend of mine pointed me to this thread because they thought i’d be able to give a good answer to this.
Hello, for those of you who haven’t seen me talk about it on the forums, I’m currently studying for a pure mathematics degree and I perform quite well at university and have performed well in Mathematics for all of my time in school, so I think I can give a couple pointers on where you can improve how you learn and how you understand mathematics, here’s all my tips.
1. Stop revising/studying for long amounts of time
I see people burn out with very simple mathematics all the time because they think they need to dedicate tons of time towards understanding concepts and perfecting their technique on every type of exam question that can pop up. I never found the need to study for long hours until I reached the demon that is real analysis, where I had to perfect my intuition to recreate proofs. What you guys currently do in high school mathematics (including A-Level Mathematics & Further Mathematics, AP Calculus, IB Mathematics, etc) is all computation and what you should focus on is training your brain on how to understand what you’re being told to do, not try to memorise every single way of doing something. Mathematics is barely a memory game so you shouldn’t treat it like one.
2. Extra resources should be a last resort
I saw a lot of people in this thread saying that if you don’t understand your teacher/lecturer that you should turn to online tools such as Khan Academy and Organic Chemistry Tutor, don’t run to these tools for salvation expecting immediate results, you will get better results if you put yourself in a pit and understand exactly what you don’t know, more will go in when you get to the point that you need to resolve on these videos.
When learning a new concept, you should always be trying to test yourself on it (the best way being questions testing your computational skills) to see exactly what you’ve absorbed in your lesson/lecture, so you can pinpoint weaknesses in your ability easier, then watch the videos and save time by only needing certain segments of them.
3. Passion saves lives
If you come into Mathematics disliking the field, you’ll learn at a much slower rate, trying to love it for what it is is what keeps my learning ability sharp, and my interests in high-level fields like Model Theory & Category Theory in specific have pushed me to try and perform as well as I can in my degree, even in sixth form (for any americans, this is junior/senior year of high school) after applying to university my passion for mathematics is what kept me rolling through my A-Levels to not burn out and get into my firm choice university.
Reviewing the advice in this thread
Absolutely agreed, depends on how who you’re teaching absorbs content though.
Procrastination has zero benefits whatsoever, aslong as you develop (or gaslight yourself into) passion you’ll want to learn more and more.
I had a time where I was like this and believed I was a “former gifted kid who fell off”, it’s all bullshit and you’re not a genius for being better at very elementary concepts at a young age, you’ve just been nurtured into being comfortable with your ability.
If you do want to talk about this with me I’m completely down, because between the ages of 16 and 18 I dedicated so much time to growing out of being the guy who doesn’t study and it’s benefitted me so much.
WHAT ARE WE ON ABOUT PROOFS ARE THE BEST PART OF MATHS
I’d say you can get away with doing less than this, I’ve been told the maximum time you should be doing mathematics for in a day is 4 hours, I usually try to stick to 1-2 when it’s outside of exam season.
My university doesn’t use calculators in my course, but I disagree with you.
If you’re in high school or middle school it’s more important to master computation and problem solving rather than mental maths skills, just focus on what gets you the grades you need and if you have a love for mathematics and want to continue it, these skills will come to you naturally as and when.
Agreed, but like I said earlier in the thread people shouldn’t be entirely reliant on this, finding where your gaps are beforehand is what will help the most.
I suggest not doing this and repeating things over and over to understand the concept, or as Stephen Siklos said “you have to strengthen your mathematical muscles”, learning how to compute specific types of question won’t make you a better mathematician, learning how to apply what you know to any type of question will.
Theyre fun when im allowed to have a list of theorems and axioms to browse from but i can NOT be asked to fucking remember that shit off the top of my head
haha no tell me about it most of my coursemates and my classmates from when i was in school are like this
sometimes it genuinely feels like less and less people have a proper love for mathematics and honestly its quite upsetting that people neglect such a beautiful field
I was talking about non chool days, I do 3 hours then