How did you get better at math?

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This topic is for people who struggled but then got better.

How did you get better in math?

what steps did you use to get better?

Have you used math all your life?

Did you hate math before?



Answer at least one of the questions

my parent constantly nagged me

always liked maths

naturally good at it.

Somewhat crap at arithmetic and basic multiplication.

The multiplication was fixed by a rather sadistic teacher who would get the entire class to recite multiplication tables before going home, or whenever she had a phone call - and when we got to the end we were to start over and go backwards, ad infinitem until she came back.

Given that she was rather sadistic, we were usually dumb enough to comply. My multiplication tables were much better after that. I'm still moderately crap at the 7's and 8's though.

Arithmetic - no help for it, I always make "careless mistakes" - hence computers are very helpful provided I don't make a typo or transposition of numbers.

For the more theoretical maths, I got better when my teachers got better. I also helped other kids get better by teaching them, the trick was to teach them what questions to ask themselves, in order to get the answers they needed.

When you're in maths class, pay more attention to the questions the teacher asks the class or a student to help them figure out how to break the problem down. Write the questions down as well as the problem answer step- by-step. If you have the right questions, you can almost always find the right answers.

I dont thnk there are any magic tips, just practise practise practise, depends what area you want to improve I suppose the methods differ....personally I dont do maths, as a general rule i cannot do mental arithmetic...just can't. Im great at algebra, but most other stuff...nope..not at-all, numbers are like gibberish

I want to learn math better. But the coding keeps getting in the way. Granted it can get very deep very fast but I am not a fan of greek letters or the other annoying coded ways of showing math. Long form first than short form. All so know as show your work then hide it heeh. I was not asked if I liked two numbers being near by means mutiply. I do know SI that's metric units but the other codes baffle me alot. I like what I can wrap my mind around but in my own coding. An example how many metres per second is 90 Kilometer per hour. Easy 90000 divide by 3600 works out to 25 metres per second. Or you can compute 1 kilometres divide by 3600 and use it for 1 to a very high limit heeh. a lot of so called math class is busy work and deadly boring.

V111

that's because some people don't get it and have to learn it like a parrot.

My best maths teachers were ones that didn't insist I did every single exercise problem when they knew I'd "got it". They'd pick out ones that showed the basic skills and I could avoid the boring repetition. I could skip ahead and tackle the more advanced stuff.

One maths teacher, I used to annoy the crap out of because she never took up our homework, she'd go round the class and get each kid to answer one of the questions. So I wouldn't work out the answer to a question until she asked me. She knew I hadn't done the homework and even if she went through the questions randomly she still couldn't catch me out. I used to get strange report cards from her like "A" and "Could try harder".

I ate my math teacher's brain.

I liked math until I got to the point where most of it became repetive, but I have always loved number puzzles. I had an entire book of "guess the number" puzzles where they would give you certain clues like "a four-digit number" and "divisble by 7 and 13" and "the ones digit is half of the hundreds digit" and I would have to figure out what the mystery number was. My other favourite puzzles were the grid logic puzzles. I guess that's not exactly math, though.

Recently, however, I've become aware of the fact that I transpose digits when doing math (ie, 7564 becomes 7654), so that doens't help my basic math skills any. In fact, there have been multiple occasions that I've had to re-do science homework because of this. I hate doing math for the sake of doing math, but I still love playing number games, either by myself or with people.

When I was learning the basic facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, it really helped me to use flash cards. The only thing was that I would have to say the problem aloud and I would usually get it really fast. If I didn't say it aloud to myself, I simply couldn't do it.

I got better when I took algebra in high school when we got a new teacher. What the other teachers couldn't make me understand for four years, I finally grasped it in the five minutes he used before class to help me out. A good teacher can make the biggest difference.

To get better at arithmetic, it takes continuous practice, practice, practice. Going to something like Kumon is a good place to start. I went to kumon for about two years, I barely made it past fractions. I hated every single second I spent inside that place. But now, I am the best at doing fractions very quickly; typically in my calculus or physics class when a fraction is involved in a problem, my classmates are usually slow to respond, I get the answer at least 2-3seconds before anyone else. And my answers are extremely accurate.

SO, with arithmetic and "low-level" math, the best thing to do is repition.

Once you get to algebra and geometry, the thing I found that is helpful for feeling more comfortable is just playing around with equations. So.. time&experience

Up until this year, I pretty much hated math, and saw it only as something that I had to do so I could actually understand where my results in SolidWorks(CAD) came from. Ever since I really started learning calculus, I've grown to love math. Its an amazing tool. Despite the simplicity of calc, its applications are limitless Physics has played a large role in making me really desire to become good at math. The fact that physics relationships can describe the reactions and actions of the entire physical universe amazes me, and because math is an integral part of this science I can't help but want to know all I can about the math.


So in conclusion:
Math is important, learn it well.
To learn low math well, repition.
To learn Calc and beyond well, love it.

I attribute it to aspergers.


I hated math most of my life, and I was so bad at it that I had some (useless) heavy-handed remediation until my senior year of high school. That year, I started studying it on my own (and didn't need to waste my time with boring teachers lecture) and grew to like it a lot.

A horrible experience in my freshman year of high school kept me away from it for another two years.

After that, I switched universities and entered an intermediate algebra class. I didn't want to be in it, so I began heavy study and made it into trig. From there, I studied on my own for several hours every day for about a year or so.

At that point I started taking a lot of math courses and got math as a second major within three years of the time I began attending the second university.

I wasn't as good at Math in Pre-K, but I got better over the years. I have taught myself. The more I learned, the better I got. I am an eleven year old in the sixth grade with a body and a mind of a twenty to thirty year old.