What do you do to be good at math?

Answer 1

Here are a few things that you can do.

• Learn the basic times tables. This is a drudge but it will give you a great advantage over others who don't know them.
• Try to understand why you do certain things rather than simply learn the rules. Just learning the rules may leave you vulnerable if a question is presented in a different way.
• Take care when doing sums. It is not two hard to understnad what you are saying if one or more words are spelld wrong but calculation errors are less forgiving. Of course, poor spelling will irritate your readers and compromise your prospects, but you should still be able to communicate the gist of your argument.
• Try to have a rough estimate of an answer - particularly if you are using a calculator or computer. I suffer from "fat fingers" but if I get an answer that is way off I know I need to check my work - both estimate and calculation.
• Don't depend on calculators or computers. You may not always have them. Like if you've just popped round to the local shop and want to compare various offers. And some of them are decidedly rip-offs.
• When you've cracked a particularly tough problem, give yourself a cheer (or three). Others probably won't, but you should!