How to get better at math?
Well, I am not a mathematician but I had failed an exam in 9th grade and 4 years down the line I got a score of 98 in my math board exam in 12th grade. Not to brag but through this article, I want to share some tips that I wished I knew when I started.
Whether you are in any school/college right now it doesn’t matter what matters is that you have decided to start.
Destroy the Inner voice that tells you you are not fit for math
No one is bad at math. You just need constant practice and revision of concepts. This may not be easy but it is possible.
When you are stuck in a problem this voice just amplifies and distracts you from the real problem at hand.
How to deal with this you ask? Well, this subconscious voice is built up over years of you not doing well in a test and thinking that you are “bad” at math. This leads to demotivation and then you don’t take action to improve your skills in math and in the next test you get worse grades and the cycle goes on.
Whenever you solve problems and get stuck write down all the formulae you know about the concept that’s used in the problem.
Try to manipulate the formula that you think might work and then apply. If you don’t get the answer its ok don’t beat yourself up, Try again at least 3 times, Then see the solution. By now you would have moved on to the next problem.
Hold on a sec. The first time you solved the problem NOTE that down because if a similar problem comes up in your exam you are going to most likely do the same mistake. Keep note of the mistake and below that note down the correct way of doing it. Yes its a bit tedious but it pays off well!
At any point, if you feel that you cant do this repeat to your self “I can do it!”, “whatever it takes!” and some other phrases to avoid being distracted by your subconscious mind.
This negative voice will go on time. Also, this is a part of changing your mindset towards doing hard things but are required to do.
The more hard something is to do, More is its value in the market
Why practice? Why do such hard things? Why do something which you dislike?
Why is very important to understand. You need to realise why you want to do something even though its hard. I wanted to get better at math because I felt it was an essential skill to have.
Remember we want results quickly. In this day and age of Social media, our attention span as decreased a lot and sources of instant gratification have increased. So subjects like math which take time to show results are most disliked by many.
They see only the hardship in doing math but the result which is so fruitful is not looked at, at all.
Practice
It’s obvious that the more you solve the better you will get. But here’s the catch. I used to solve problems but sometimes I couldn’t understand the solution to those problems. It just used to go over my head and I thought only way is to just say “its too hard let’s move on” and I never came back to those problems.
You can do that when you have an exam very close like a day or two off. But please come back to the “Hard” solutions and see if you can get it. Ask around, get help but please do understand them however long it takes.
See our brains are not like machines that we do something again and again that we give the same output. We have the ability to do something different and to come up with different solutions to the same problem. So leverage this ability. Try to think of the problems which you could not understand by asking these questions
What concepts which I don’t know in this/these questions?
What are the different ways I can look at this problem(even if the other method is longer)?
What concepts/ techniques I can use form this/these problems?
Patience
It’s important to note that not all concepts will go into our heads the first time we learn it. We need to “feel” the concepts to grasp it well. This will take days/months of revising, asking around, trying out easy problems.
If the space between the ladder bars were too spaced out we couldn’t possibly climb up to the top of the wall. So take any concept step by step to understand each step and don’t think too far ahead
I used to think if I could find any mathematical mistake in the book which I was reading DONT do that it will just throw you off and induce a lot of confusion.
Ask about conflicting concepts. Sometimes when I solved problems I would try to apply some other concept not related to that chapter to solve the problem. Ask your lecturer/ friends who are good at math about these. if it is correct or not.
This will help you to understand where to use which concept and how.
Consistency is key
This is one thing which I believe strongly in. I used to have a very hard time-solving trigonometry and triangles related questions.
I solved 10 problems a day from these chapters. Even when I had a rough day. This was difficult but I could see the impact it had on my problem-solving skills. It helped me to think in the right direction not and prepared me for class tests.
The impact of solving only 10 problems every day in a tie limit helped me to keep in track of what concepts I have lost hold on and what I knew well.
Being Self relient
When I was in school, I used to ask questions to my math teacher ranging from easiest to the dumbest questions you have ever heard and I was not ashamed at all.
What happened is that whenever I had any query on a question I started losing confidence in myself to find the answers on my own. So even if my friends had cleared my confusion for me, I would still ask my math teacher because I had no self-confidence in myself or confidence in my peers.
So to avoid this trust issue that I had built up. I used to keep the questions that I cant understand on the last page of my book or somewhere where I can recall those questions. When I started answering these questions on my own, I realised I was more confident in solving questions and having trust in my logic.
Now, I am NOT saying NOT to ask questions to your lecturer but there is a certain level of questions which you can answer yourself if given time which will help you build your confidence and critical thinking.
Also if you’re in class and you have a question don’t hesitate to ask because a teachers job is to let you know if your question is too far fetched (that will be answered later on) or perfect for the topic he/she is taking up.
Also if a question you have is taking too long to answer like a month or more then it’s better to ask. So keep rewinding the questions from your question book consistently regularly.
Lastly don’t give up. It’s easy to say math is hard and give excuses but no one but you is a loss. Yes, it’s difficult at first but once you start enjoying the process you will love it! Trust me even I did not like the sound of math when I started.
What happens with you today is the direct consequence of your past actions. So take full responsibility and never give up.
