Zephyr1779

On 10/16/2022 at 9:49 PM, studiot said:

I suggest the following strategy.

1.   Start at the beginning and attempt maths questions from that year's material, from any source that you can get hold of so long as the answers are also provided.
   You don't need to achieve grades or marks, just to find out what you know and what you don't know.
    
2.   Hopefully, as you say, it will come easy at this stage and you will fly through the material.
   Quickly review wrong answers and check the teaching material for that topic if you get several wrong on a particular thing.
    
3.   Eventually you will find questions you can't answer.
   This is where you stop, go back and study the teaching material for that year, going forward at your own pace.
   Make sure you try the questions again and even if you don't get them all right, make sure you understand how to do them.
    
4.   Finally you will decide that you are no longer just filling in gaps but need to take your studies forward from where you left off a few years ago.

That looks like good plan! Thanks studiot! I'll try it out this way, and hopefully will be able to manage to pass through much without too many problems.

Cheers!

On 10/15/2022 at 12:52 AM, studiot said:

I hate to tell you this but it is just about impossible to learn any technical subject topic by topic.
This is particularly true for Mathematics.

The reason for this is that all the topics are inter-related.
You need to know a little bit of arithmetics to study algebra and a little bit of algebra to study geometry, but also a little bit of geometry at the beginning of algebra and so on.

That is why the the same topics are revisited at every grade, but at a higher level.

Hi, studiot!

Thank you for the reply.

If what you say is true, then how would you suggest I take on this restudying plan?

What would be in your opinion most efficient way to plan on re-studying math? Go grade-by-grade or some other method?

Additionally, I replied before with what topics I'm comfortable right now in this post, so I'm not sure from where exactly to start my re-learning process.

On 10/14/2022 at 8:19 PM, Zephyr1779 said:

What I forgot to mention in the OP about my knowledge was that the last time I did math was in high school which was about 6-7 years ago. Each time I did math tests I managed to get a C and B (sometimes A's, but those were rare).

The problem with the method of studying back then that I was using was rote learning. I crammed everything the night before tests, so everything that I learned all those days at school, I basically forgot now. Which is the reason why I'm planning on restudying everything from the point where I'm weakest all the way up to the pre-college material.

This is the reason why I'm looking for some sort of "evaluation" or "diagnostic" test to see where I should start.

For example, I know how to do arithmetic operations (ASMD) with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, etc. I know percentages, exponentiation, rooting, ratios, proportions, and elementary algebra. But that's about all I can remember right now, so I don't know where to start right now.

On 10/13/2022 at 5:04 PM, joigus said:

If you want to go from A to B, it's only natural that the answer will depend on where's A, and where's B.

Are you already fluent in algebra, geometry, and analysis? (where's A?)

Do you intend to tackle very sophisticated and recent mathematics, like ,eg, Grothendieck's Motives? (where's B?)

If you already have a reasonable A, are not too ambitious about B, and also perhaps are relatively young, I see no reason why you wouldn't get there with the sources you propose by following your nose, and intuitively finding where the boundary between what you ignore and you already know actually is.

I hope that was helpful.

18 hours ago, mathematic said:

If you know elementary arithmetic, start with elementary algebra.

16 hours ago, MigL said:

As a Physicist, I consider Math a set of tools that I can use to build models, that explain and make predictions about the workings of the universe.

Learning the use of these tools by going 'up through the grades', would be equivalent to learning how to use your hammer and saw to initially make a bookshelf. Then framing a shed or garage, until you are finally proficient enough to frame a house.

Going 'through topics' would be equivalent to taking a tool type, such as a table saw to cut lumber, a band saw to cut wood shapes, a chainsaw to cut trees, etc., and becoming proficient in all saw types before switching to another tool type.

What do you want to do with your tools ?

16 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

If you are confident you know what it is you don't know then skip to the parts you feel you need, but if you aren't sure, go through them all in order and see. It shouldn't take long to find out whether each element is understood, then jump ahead, without doing all the exercises. Or not.

My own experience is that missing something along the way can make what you are trying to learn a lot more difficult - the curriculam tends to designed to provide foundations that can be built on.

I tried something similar, more to see if I could recover what I'd learned and lost than learn from zero - I can't say it went well and I suspect some of the parts I struggled with went all the way back to missed lessons at school, far too long ago. In my late 60's I don't take it in as readily as back then. Or retain it so easily... better than average recall got me through school, but now I struggle to remember where my glasses are... when they are hanging on a cord around my neck.

Thank you all very much for your suggestions and opinions, I really appreciate it.

What I forgot to mention in the OP about my knowledge was that the last time I did math was in high school which was about 6-7 years ago. Each time I did math tests I managed to get a C and B (sometimes A's, but those were rare).

The problem with the method of studying back then that I was using was rote learning. I crammed everything the night before tests, so everything that I learned all those days at school, I basically forgot now. Which is the reason why I'm planning on restudying everything from the point where I'm weakest all the way up to the pre-college material.

This is the reason why I'm looking for some sort of "evaluation" or "diagnostic" test to see where I should start.

For example, I know how to do arithmetic operations (ASMD) with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, etc. I know percentages, exponentiation, rooting, ratios, proportions, and elementary algebra. But that's about all I can remember right now, so I don't know where to start right now.

Thanks again for the replies guys, it really means it

Hi, everyone!

I'm preparing myself for the next year's college entrance exam, and I hope that 10-11 months of intensive study regime will be enough time for me to pass it. I would like your opinion on it to see if such a thing is possible and if there is anything that needs to be changed about my study program.

The entrance exam which is on July, 1st is only 10 math-based questions from a random selection of topics listed here: https://pastebin.com/8yKZ26XY

Now, here's the thing. All those topics that were listed in the above PasteBin link are the topics that are officially recommended on the college's site that students need to study for the exam, and what I'm curious about that is: Is 10-11 months enough time to study all these topics to be able to pass at least the majority of the questions correctly?

I have to admit that unfortunately, the last time I studied math was at high school, which was almost 7 years ago now, and seeing how I didn't use anything else other than basic arithmetic in my day-to-day life, I've forgotten all of the topics I studied back in high-school 

To make matters worse, my studying back in the day consisted of nothing but rote learning and memorizing just enough to get a passing grade, sometimes I managed to get a perfect score, but those moments were rare.

As far as learning goes, I never had a problem with it. I understood what I was studying fairly quickly, and I never found math so "troubling" as other students did, the only problem is as I mentioned before, I only tended to memorize things and rote learn what I was supposed to learn, which in turn lead me to this situation where I forgot most of the things I've learned before. So now, with such bad knowledge of math, is this time that I allocated for studying enough to encompass about 80% of those topics? I'm not looking to ace the entrance exam (although that would be ideal), but the more points I can get, the better.

Like I said before, I do plan on having an intensive study regime to be able to achieve this.

And, here's what my study plan looks like:

• I plan to start studying as soon as possible, hopefully by August (things in life just keep getting in the way right now). When I start, I'm going to go and repeat everything from 5th - 8th grade (this is mostly because I believe that if my fundamentals are bad, so I want to remind myself of what I've learned throughout those years and fill in any gaps that I might have, so as to not make the 9-12 material difficult)

My self-study resources will comprise mostly of:

• In the beginning, my study will be light, consisting of only 3-4 hours a day, 5 days per week (1 - 2 hours more, if it's something hard), but as I'm nearing the entrance exam, I'll go with the more and more intensive regime, like 4-5 hours a day, then 6-7h a day, 6x a week, etc.

More than 8 hours is something I don't think I'll be able to accomplish, just to avoid burning myself out.

• Starting from September or October, I'll also include a private tutor who prepares students for these entrance exams, and I plan to go on those study sessions once a week to let him see how much I've progressed, and if there's anything that I don't know or am stuck on, to let him explain it to me, etc.

And that's pretty much it regarding my study plan. I'd like to hear your opinion on this and if there's anything you think I should change.

Also, out of all those topics listed above, the students I've contacted who have done those tests from previous years have told me that out of all those topics, the ones that appear the most frequently on tests are the following: (2, 6, 12, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24)

The tests in these previous 6-7 years are almost all the same, except with different numbers and wordings.


Another thing that I'd like to ask is, should I just ignore the 5-8 material, and focus on the high school stuff immediately? The reason why I wanted to go through the 5-8 was to refresh my memory of the basics and fill in the holes where I'm lacking. Is it better to do this, or is it better to ignore it and go immediately for the high-school stuff?

Also, in your opinion which of these topics would you focus more on, and which ones would you skip (if any)?


One last thing that I should mention is that the test itself is not scored based on a "Correct/Incorrect" answer, but rather on effort. Each question can get you 6 points, and there are 10 questions in total. If you try to answer a question but get it wrong, you can still get graded from 1 to 5 points, 6 if you answer correctly, 0 if you don't write anything down, or write down something irrelevant.



And that's all I have to say!

I'd like to hear your opinion on this whole situation and any suggestions you guys can offer me.

Thanks in forward, and apologies for such a long post!

Hi, everyone!

I'm planning on teaching myself math all the way back from the basics, up to high school stuff.

It has been a long time since I studied math. I've never been a great student back in school. I daydreamed most of the time, and when it came to math, I always rote learned and memorized things just enough to get a passing grade, sometimes I got lucky and managed to get a perfect score, but those moments were rare.

Because of that rote learning, and memorization, I have forgot almost everything about math other than the basic arithmetic, and even there, it takes me a bit of time to calculate simple problems :(

However, now, that I'm older, I found out just how useful and great math really is. I would honestly love to go through it again, and hopefully with your help I can manage to do it!

What I'm looking for are (in your opinion) the best learning math resources that you can recommend. Anything that covers the materials from K up to Grade 12.

The type of resource is irrelevant, I'm not looking for only one type, it can be anything, whether it's a book, a website, videos, etc. Free, or paid also doesn't matter.

All that's important to me is to get a good book/video/etc. that properly explains the concepts I'm learning. I want to make sure that I actually understand the concepts I'm reading about and to be able to think logically on how to solve the problems for the topic I studied. Which means no more rote learning, and no more memorization!

If necessary, for better understanding of the concept I'm learning, it would be nice to also learn the history behind that concept I'm learning about, that is, how did we manage to come up or create something like which we use to this day, what problem did the people back in the day need to solve in order to come up with such things, etc. (eg: numbers, base 10 system, shapes, algebra, logarithms, calculus, trigonometry, probability, statistics, etc.)

While I'm studying math right now mostly for fun, and because I find math to be such an amazing subject now than I did back before while I was at school, I do plan on taking my studies seriously, and actually trying to learn it, instead of what I was doing in the past.

Aside from the resource recommendation, I would also like to ask you guys:

What do you believe is the best / proper way to study math? Instead of cramming or memorizing formulas and methods like I did back in school, what do you think is the most effective way to study to "make it stick", that is, how should one study math to better understand the content you're learning?

What are some common mistakes people do when trying to learn math?

Additionally, is there like a roadmap, or a guide for studying math? That is, from which topics should I start and how should I progress?

Also, apologies if this is posted in the wrong subforum, moderators feel free to move this thread to where you think is appropriate.

Thanks in forward, and apologies for the long post!