Whether we like it or not, we cannot escape studying mathematics, at least studying it in detail until we finish school and we have to use it in one way or the other all through our lives, no matter what we do.

Most of us hate maths with a vengeance, though not everyone accepts this to avoid being thought of as dull-witted. The few who do like this maze of a subject are lucky to have a natural ease with numbers. Most mortal folks toil and moil to understand the tough mathematical concepts just enough to get decent grades in this subject.

But since there is no escaping maths in school, and most college and university level courses and degrees, it is better to make peace with it and learn how to navigate its puzzling problems.

better to make peace with it and learn how to navigate its puzzling problems.

You can spend hours studying maths but still find yourself unable to solve problems in your test or exam paper. You understood what the teacher was explaining in the class and doing on the board, but you don’t know what the examiner wants you to do in the answer sheet.

Studying maths requires knowing some techniques, following of some steps and remembering some, well many actually, formulas and theorems, and lots and lots of practice. In fact, the more you practice solving mathematical problems, the better you will become.

Let us explore some ways to make more sense out of maths so that you can study it more effectively and attempt your exams more confidently.

Maths at school

Never miss a math class. You need to be regular in your math class as you can’t just study your classmate’s notes or notebook the next day and learn what you missed.

Paying attention and listening attentively to the teacher is very important to understand what is being taught. Maths is a visual subject in which you have to see and listen to understand the method the teacher is using to get to the answer. Here getting the right answer is as important as following the correct method and showing all your steps and workings on paper.

What to note down? Since maths isn’t so much theory based, there really isn’t much of what your teacher is saying that you need to note down. But you do need to note down what your teacher is doing on the board and the examples being done by the teacher so that when you review it at home, you will understand the method and concept taught better. Classroom examples are always those that are typical of the topic and usually enough to guide you to do other sums of the chapter.

Ask questions. If you don’t understand what is being explained, don’t stay quiet, hoping it will all make sense later on when you do it on your own. If you don’t understand what is being taught, you have to speak up at once and ask the teacher.

You can’t do problems on your own if you did not understand how the teacher did them in the class. And don’t shy away because it is the teacher’s duty to make sure all the students understand what is being taught in the class and become capable enough to attempt the sums independently.

Maths is not a subject that you ‘learn’ by ‘reading’ a book and ‘cramming’ notes. So the best place to learn it is in the class, practice is what you do on your own.

Studying by yourself

You have to study maths by yourself too, in fact, study a lot.

Do all the questions in the textbook. Unless you have been specifically told to omit a certain exercise or question because it is not related to your syllabus, you should attempt all the questions and examples in your maths textbook.

Read all the text for it has useful tips, methods and formulas that you are expected to know and it is vital for understanding the topic and concepts.

Do your homework. You can’t do all the problems in your book in the class so those that the teacher leaves are mostly given as homework to reinforce the concepts and make you practice the working. Those that are still left out are by no means unimportant and they can appear in your exams.

Study maths every day. Each day, especially on those days that you have your maths lesson in school, come home and go through what you did in the class. You can’t postpone it until you get homework or a test because you are likely to forget what was taught. If you have done all the sums of the exercise, look up similar maths problems on internet and do them. If you want to be best friends with maths, you need to stay in touch with it constantly.

Understand, not just learn. You need to understand how a formula is derived rather than just memorising it. Memorisation is tricky as your memory can fail you but if you understand how something was derived or the working, it will make sense to you and you are bound to remember it for a longer period of time. Even if you forget something, once you start doing the steps, it will come back to you if you understand the process.

So it is easier to remember just a few simple formulas and how to derive more complicated ones from them.

Review errors. One of the best ways to learn anything, especially maths, is from the mistakes your make, that is the problems that you get wrong. This is also the reason why doing corrections is so important. It will help you understand where you went wrong.

If you can’t do the corrections independently, ask your teacher to show you the correct way or ask a friend who got it right.

Tips for doing a maths test

• Take a deep breath and relax.

• Read the questions carefully. Read them again because what may have appeared to you as difficult in the first reading can seem easy this time round.

• Do the easy questions first and get them out of the way to focus and spend more time on the difficult ones.

• Now do the lengthy questions that carry more marks.

• Finally turn to the hardest ones and give them your best shot.

• Even if you feel you have got the answer wrong, or not done a question properly, don’t cross it out or erase it. Just leave it and come back to it later if you have time. Even if you don’t, you might have done it right, or will get some marks for your working.

• Show all your work on the answer sheet, rough work can be done by drawing a margin on the side and doing it there. This helps the teacher to understand how you got your answer.

• Write as clearly as possible, there shouldn’t be any confusion in how you write the digits because if the teacher doesn’t understand it, you will be marked wrong. — AK ­­

Studying for the exam

• Studying and practicing maths needs to be done the whole year through. Do not wait till the last minute as you won’t be able to learn and understand everything in a short time.

• Ask for help if something still seems to evade your understanding. Ask your teacher, friend, parent or just anyone who knows what you do not. But make sure that the person knows the particular method of doing the maths problems the way it was taught in your school.

• Go over your lecture notes and all that was done in the class. Rework the examples and homework.

• Ask your teacher if your math book has an online website. Sometimes online textbooks can help by providing quizzes and additional instructional material.

• Make flash cards of formulas, rules and theorems. Or write them down in a separate section of your notebook or a sheet of paper, so that they are all together in one place and you can keep glancing on it to revise, especially just before the paper.

• Do not cram just before a test or exam. Last minute attempts do not help, if you had not been able to memorise something earlier, you won’t be able to do so now. So don’t make yourself more nervous by trying something that you can’t do. Focus on retaining what you have already learnt.

• During the days before the exam, test yourself by making a mock examination for yourself, choosing a mix of questions from all the topics and doing them. Be honest enough to select the difficult and tricky questions too. See where you get stuck and revise that part again. — AK

Published in Dawn, Young World March 11th, 2017