help a young guy out , basically i'm bad at math and i want to get good fast. In like a week, you guys are pretty good at math so i figured i ask here.
What kind of maths?
Calculus and Algebra i guess , its for an assessment test at a college i readmitted to.
tl;dr : Do problems from a testbank, look to patrickjmt and khanacademy for help. If math is important to your major, do skip classes which may contain important material merely for the sake of time (from experience, can be a bad idea).
Google that university (try others as well) and try and find a public test bank. Find finals, exams etc. and try and finish them.
For things you don't know how to do, try patrickjmt (google) and Khan Academy.
Word of caution though. While jumping ahead of classes you have no experience in is tempting as you can get ahead that way with a test. That test may not test you in certain subject matter that become relevant past what it tests you for, i.e. if you skip calc, and get into calc 2, you may be shooting yourself in foot as you're missing out on techniques of solving integrals etc.
That's true and attending those classes are very tiresome. I have sat through them years ago and it takes 40 minutes to teach something i learned on youtube in 2 minutes.
They can be tiresome, but it all comes down to your confidence in the subject. For me, I stumbled, got kicked out of uni etc, and am now getting back to it.
If there's any advice to give you, it would be to ask yourself 1. How confident am I with this subject matter, 2. Will the time saved result in me struggling in future courses due to skipped material.
the best method to git good at math is solve a million problems
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@BASHtian I think the time of taking course after course is not worth it if i can get there faster . The quickest way to your destination is a straight line right?
@ipushpeople gotta do the reps yeah
I redid all of my school math classes in 2 years. You only get good at math if you just do it. Instead of sitting here wondering how to get good at math, why don't you go do math. Theres no trick, theres no gander, its just knowing the formulas you need.
I assume you're in school right? Study. Thats how you get good at math.
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Yes of course
and that is why American math education sucks.. They give examples and throw hundred problem worksheets at you for a year straight and say you know it.
How exactly are you bad at math?
When ever someone struggles at math, there usually some sort of root cause. Do you not understand the concepts, do you just get overwhelmed by a problem, or do you have a tendency to rush through a problem and end up making stupid mistakes.
I like that someone recommended Khan Academy. It is a very nice way to learn. I wish the ALC that I go to had their online learning set to be more like Khan Academy as then I would be doing the work. : P Khan Academy definitely was a good recommendation.
in all seriousness though, this guy's playlists go up through calc 2 IIRC:
he literally wrote all the "math for dummies" books
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college re assesment exam to see where i am in math but its really to put people in remedial courses so that the college can make more money.
"remedial courses make no sense" - Bill Gates
No, thats not what its designed for.
Colleges don't make any money off of you directly. They make money off of funding they get. That funding is based on the total number of students they have.
If you drop out of school because you dove head-first into a math class that you weren't ready for, then no one wins.
Trust me, I started college when I was 14 and ended up skipping a bunch of math classes. It was NOT FUN. Being expected to know random trig functions to integrate equations was about as easy as getting my toenails ripped out.
The best way to learn a lot of math in a couple days is to do a fuckton of practice problems in a couple days. Math builds on itself in school, so start from the ground and practice a lot, then move to the hard problems. When those harder problems start to become easy, move to harder problems. Repeat until your "good" at maths.
Try and find tests online, try them out and try to do a single test in 1 hour max (I don't know how is in America but here you have a 2h limit) and Mark everything that you can't solve, oh yes and if you can't solve something mark it and skip it fast. That's why there is a 1 hour time limit.
After that if you have money start calling local teachers (I can only guess that you can find the places on the internet that they use to advertise themselves) and ask them if they know the test and can help you or if they know how to solve the problems you can't. And ask them for at least 2 hours per day for the amount of days till the test. Everyday after the session or before depending on when are your classes redo the math problems at least twice, this way the brain understands that this is important and you will remember it faster.
This is the fastest way, if you don't have money go on the internet the sites and people mentioned above must be enough. Khan academy is kinda okay but sometimes no matter how much I watch their examples I can't do shit.