Why can’t my brain just attach to math? I detest it so much and don’t retain. Ok so I am doing PreAlgebra and so far int he first 2 weeks its been ok. We’ve done whole numbers and integers. I did great on pretty much everything until we get to the operations sequences and the multiplying positive and negatives. I had to take a quiz today and got a 75. I know I can’t get an A in math. How do accountants do it? I have a cousin-in-law’s wife who just loves math and has a degree in accounting. I could NEVER EVER. NEVER.
Is there some trick to opening your mind to retain what you learn/read? Is it my subconcious trying to come out and say “Nice try but you know we hate this crap”… Any advice would be helpful, I have a test on the 9th!
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I wish I had some tips and tricks. I loved math, but hated literature and history classes because there was so much reading and memorizing with no hands on work like math and science.
There’s a neat trick for multiplying positives and negatives which hubby explained to me – If you have negative numbers, rotate ONE of their signs and overlay with the other! Sounds odd, right?
Say you’re multiplying 3 by 4 – they’re both positive, +3 * +4. Rotation is irrelevant since they’re positive and when you overlay the signs they vanish, so you’ve got a positive result, +12.
Now multiply -3 by 4. -3 * +4. Rotate the minus (so it’s a |) and overlay, the | cancels the | of the + and you’re left with a -. -3 * 4 is -12.
Multiplying by two negatives works the same way. -3 * -4, rotate the FIRST minus and you get |, overlay with the – and it makes a +. -3 * 4 = +12.
There’s other tricks you can try and remember too – Two wrongs DO make a right in math, One wrong turn and one right turn always makes the wrong destination, stuff like that.
As for retaining things, practice, practice, practice! Get friends or family to make up problems to solve, multiply items on your shopping receipt together and include any deductions for coupons/discounts for your negative number practices. You can easily check your work with a calculator later to see if you’re right
Hopefully that’s helpful!