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Monday, September 1, 2008

Studying Mathematics

Studying Mathematics is Different from Studying Other Subjects

  • Mathematics is learned by doing problems. Do the homework. The problems help you learn the formulas and techniques you do need to know, as well as improve your problem-solving power.

  • A word of warning: Each class builds on the previous ones, all semester long. You must keep up with the Instructor: attend class, read the text and do homework every day. Falling a day behind puts you at a disadvantage. Falling a week behind puts you in deep trouble.

  • A word of encouragement: Each class builds on the previous ones, all semester long. You're always reviewing previous material as you do new material. Many of the ideas hang together. Identifying and learning the key concepts means you don't have to memorize as much.

  • The higher the math class, the more types of problems: in earlier classes, problems often required just one step to find a solution. Increasingly, you will tackle problems which require several steps to solve them. Break these problems down into smaller pieces and solve each piece - divide and conquer!

  • When you work problems on homework, write out complete solutions, as if you were taking a test. Don't just scratch out a few lines and check the answer in the back of the book. If your answer is not right, rework the problem; don't just do some mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you could get the correct answer. If you can't get the answer, get help.

  • The practice you get doing homework and reviewing will make test problems easier to tackle.


Solving an Applied Problem


First convert the problem into mathematics. This step is (usually) the most challenging part of an applied problem. If possible, start by drawing a picture. Label it with all the quantities mentioned in the problem. If a quantity in the problem is not a fixed number, name it by a variable. Identify the goal of the problem. Then complete the conversion of the problem into math, i.e., find equations which describe relationships among the variables, and describe the goal of the problem mathematically.


Solve the mathematics problem you have generated, using whatever skills and techniques you need .
As a final step, you should convert the answer of your mathematics problem back into words, so that you have now solved the original applied problem.

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