Techniques To Solve Math Problems Faster

Math is fun but only for a few students. But most of the students hate math. They run to their parents saying “please solve my math problem” when teachers give math homework to do. But why? For most of the students, math is least interesting and this begins in class.

Students must instead learn math and the process to solve the sums in an interesting way. This will prevent them from saying “please solve my math problem”. In fact, parents must encourage their children to solve the sums and teach them the methods.

Saying “please solve my math problem” is not only restricted to school going students but college and university students too look for assistance with the math papers. Even they have a tough time to solve the math problems.

However with ‘primary homework help’ available to the school going students, they can now simply order the papers and get them on time.

The problem with math lies in the fact that the teachers do not make the subject interesting for the students. The basic of math are not clearly explained to them. Thus, most students find it tough to solve the problems and look for assistance.

So can this be solved? The only way to solve math problems is to clear the basic things like simple addition, subtraction, multiplication etc. There are several different strategies that students can follow to solve the simple things in their mind. The tough problems will automatically become easy. 

Knowing the BODMAS rule

Many students forget that the BODMAS rule is applicable to solve certain problems. Since they do not apply this rule, the answers are wrong. To revise once again, B stands for a bracket, O stands for ‘of' (powers and roots), D stands for division, M stands for multiplication, A stands for addition and S for subtraction. You must solve the start with the bracket and follow the acronym. 

Framing sub-questions

It is not that students only get sums to solve. There are complex word problems too. The best method is to teach the students to break it into sub-questions. This will help them to dissect the problem and accurately answer them.

·         Students must start by reading the question and identify the important details. 

·         The next step is to determine what things they need to solve the question like variables, drawing figures etc. 

·         The final step is to form the equation by using the information and solving it. 

This helps students to separate the needed information and not get overloaded with it. Identification of the key information is important rather than analyzing each of the given details. 

Learning to identify the prompts

Even the math word problems have prompts that the students must be able to identify. These prompts are the keywords that indicate the students which path they must follow to solve the problem. These keywords are phrases that indicate specifically the action that students must take.

If there are words and phrases like:

·         ‘the product of’ or ‘increased by x times’ where x is a variable that has a number the students must multiply. 

·         ‘a difference of’ or ‘reduced by’ indicates a subtraction. ‘Fewer then’ and ‘lesser than’ also added to this. 

·         A division is indicated by ‘out of’ or ‘per’. Phrases like ‘quotient of’ and ‘ratio’ of ‘ is also used for this purpose.

·         If students find phrases like ‘more than’ or ‘increased by’ they must go for addition. ‘sum of’, ‘total of’ and ‘combined’ sum’ also indicated addition. 

Cross-multiplication for percentages

Cross-multiplication can be used to calculate percentage easily. Only the decimal must be moved to two places in the left. 

Like these, there are several strategies that students can use to break complex math problems and solve them easily.