Things that make THINK ABOUT YOUR MATHS easier

  • Do your class homework
    • All of it, and on time
    • Find out how to do the things that block you when working through an exercise
      • Read your textbook/notes, look for a worked example, ask a friend, ask your tutor — find out! For yourself! You will be able to do it.
    • Do not procrastinate — make maths a priority
  • Read your teacher’s notes or textbook carefully
    • This may mean having to re-read certain parts of the text, and more than twice
    • Some things may have to go on the back burner to simmer for while
      • Ie some ideas take getting used to 
        • Don’t be concerned, if something is hard to understand, everybody has the same experience whatever level they are at
        • Keep coming back to it
        • Doing this does not mean that you are not good at mathematics
      • Ask about anything you do not understand in tutorials
  • Look at and follow worked examples
    • These show you how to complete exercises and find solutions to problems
      • It is vital that you are able to follow and learn from these
      • Look! line by line, and imagine what happened to go from one line to the next, or from one part of the solution to the next
        • Overcome any feelings of aversion due to math phobia and Look! and think
      • Please ask about anything in any worked example that you don’t understand
      • Really work at using these to learn from — that is why they are included in textbooks
  • Write solutions as per your teacher’s worked examples
    • I’ll say, “Copy their style assiduously!”
  • Actively make connections 
    • This is the skilful part that only you can do for yourself
    • Use your “street smarts” — reasoning is not something that is rarefied, it is very down to earth and you have it at your disposal, you just have to start using it, in fact we reason all the time about lots of different things. Maths uses reasoning in a more abstract setting but the reasoning remains the same.
  • Do not be put off by making small errors
    • And even less by big errors
    • Making errors does not mean that you cannot do mathematics
    • Just become aware, acknowledge, make a mental note, that you have made an error and what error it is, correct it, and move on
    • You will soon find that you have stopped making the error (and may now be making new errors, but this is what it is like learning maths — we learn by making mistakes)
      • it was said in the past that to learn maths you only need 3 things: paper; a pencil; and a waste-paper basket (mistakes are certain, so paper will need to be discarded). Maybe 4 things if you include a textbook.
  • Think about how to communicate solutions
    • This is something that is vitally important so please do not neglect it in your studies and in your preparation for exams 
    • At AH level consider the following comment from the 2019 course report
      • Communication continues to cause difficulties. Teachers and lecturers should emphasise accurate use of notation, terminology, brackets and symbols. Candidates should practise the use of correct summation notation. Many candidates omitted linking words and phrases, especially where proof or justification was required.
    • I’ll say it again — copy your teacher’s style assiduously
    • I will emphasise the importance of the communication of solutions in our tutorials and urge you to:
      • Try to show understanding and fluency with both notation and ideas
      • Release your inner pedant and strive to give full and technically correct solutions
      • Tighten up your solutions and actively seek to avoid careless errors that can cost you dearly at AH level
      • Take pride in acing difficult procedures in AH, in most cases these come down to practising lots of different problems in the topic