Mathematics Is So Easy to Study

It’s a popular misconception that you can’t really study for math.  People who say you can’t will admit that you can do math assignments and math homework.  But actually studying it–looking at material in order to better on tests and upcoming assignments–that, they say, is impossible.

They’re wrong.  It’s true that studying math is different from studying any other class.  After all, math is about more than just remembering certain facts.  But it is something that you can study for–and studying will get you better grades, just as in any other course.

Think of it like sports.  It’s true that you can’t get good at basketball by memorizing facts, like you can in a science class.  But you can get good by combining learning with a schedule of continuing practice.  This is the way study for a math class or test works.  You study by learning the facts–and then spending hours trying to work problems for yourself, learning the methods and formulas that you’ve been studying.

On average, with most class tests or classes, you should put in two hours of your personal time for every hour that you meet in your math class.  Research has shown that what differentiates the good math student from the bad is not how willing they are to practice the principles they’ve learned, but how willing they are to do it, whether they like it or not. Again, that’s as true of math as it is of sports.  If you are preparing for an exam like the AFQT, HSPT or SSAT, you will need to put in more time.

Here are some other tips that you should keep in mind:

1) Review right after class. Getting math facts that you’ve just newly learned into your long-term memory is tough.  Immediate review, I.e., studying right after you’ve been exposed to the new fact, is more effective than if you review it a day or two or more later.  This is one reason that it’s smart to do your homework and related review activities immediately after your class, or no more than a few hours later.  It helps you remember things better.

2) Don’t try to multitask while studying math. This might work while you’re reading for a history or science course, but it rarely works for math. To truly master new formulas and principles, your brain has to be fully engaged in the math that’s in front of you.  This means no talking on the phone, no watching TV, and no listening to anything except soft background music.

3) Follow this formula while learning math: Read it, recite it, do it with notes, do it without notes.  Let’s examine that a bit closer.  First, read the new math concept that you’re learning–let’s say division by negative numbers.  Next, recite it.  Pretend like you’re a teacher, trying to explain to students how to divide by negative numbers. How would you explain it.  Keep reviewing the material until you’re able to explain it without referring to your notes.  Third, DO some problems, while looking at notes.  Usually your notes will explain a step-by-step process, so follow this process closely as you work on a few division-of-negative-numbers problems.  And finally, after you’re doing these with confidence, give up the notes and try them on your own.

Group Study Method Is Simply Good

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Sometimes group study can be a productive thing, and sometimes, not so much.  Group study becomes less than productive when your study sessions turn into occasions for friends to get together to have a good time and share gossip.  Often, there’s little actual study that goes on during these sessions. However, that doesn’t have to be the case.  With a little planning and hard work, your study group can really help each other master your course material.  One of the best ways of doing this is through what’s called the Study Guide Exchange.

The Study Guide Exchange means this:  Each of you in your study group (an ideal number is 4 to 6) is responsible for creating a study guide for the class chapter or unit, based on your own notes.  That is, you should put your notes into a logically-flowing order and type it out in such a way that it can teach OTHER people what you’ve studied during the past few weeks.  After each of you has produced your study guide, you then make copies and share these with the other members of the group.  Let’s look in more detail at the steps involved in your Study Guide Exchange.

1) First, be sure that you have what’s necessary to make your study guide. This means your class notes and textbook, computer, and computer paper.

2) Decide which subject you’re creating the guide for. Most likely, this will be the class that your entire group shares.

3) Now study your textbook and lecture notes, highlighting all key points that you think you’ll need to understand for the test.  This is an important step, because each of you might have slightly different views of what is and isn’t important.  That’s what makes this idea so powerful:  You’re pulling in four or five different ideas about what you should learn.

4) Try to keep your study guide to 8 to 10 pages. More than that, when you consider that everyone will be reading three or four or five of these, will be overwhelming.

5) Emphasize important points through the use of bold-faced or different colored fonts.

6) Throughout the guide, after you go over a couple of important points, include questions with blanks after them. Then in the back of the study guide, have an answer page, so that everyone can check their answers.

7) While you’re working on the answer page, double check to be sure that all of your answers can be found by the others without too much of a strain.

8) To distribute these, you can do one of two things: Either print out enough for everyone, or just get everyone’s email address and email it to them.  Make sure that they have the program that they need to open the file (Word format, or .doc,, is a standard that most people should have, but make sure before you email them).  Either way, everyone will wind up printing one copy.

Theoretically, you can all now study each other’s study guides individually, but feel free to get together as a group and quiz each other on them as well.

As mentioned earlier, this idea works better when you don’t have too many people in your study group.  You can imagine how overwhelming it would be if you have 10 friends in the group, all creating their own 10 page study guide.  This would be a 100 page study guide for each unit in your class, and that’s a bit much for any student to digest.  Keep it to a small group, though, and this method will benefit the class grade for anyone who truly studies the guides.