Last time I can remember taking a math exam was in 1980 or 1981. I’m in trig.
I’ve asked the TA for guidance on “how” to best study for a math exam, he just looked at me as if I had horns and fangs and said matter of factly, do your homework. Well, yes - that’s a given I thought. But… ahem… beyond that?
I also went to my professor and asked if old exams would be of any use to see format, types of questions, etc. He said no material would come from them (duh). I was not looking to get a cheat-sheet of sorts, just some:
“Well, there will be 20 questions on various manners of using trig functions and then 5 proofs of various trigonometric equalities” … not even that.
So, tonight I’m redoing the old homework without looking into the chapter for guidance.
Any other tips, thoughts on how to best prep for the exam? I have realistically until Weds night (exam is on Friday).
Thanks!
I was a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics when I was in college.
For math, you need to read the chapter and go through every examples in the chapter. You should be able to solve every single examples without referring back to the book. This will confirm your basic understanding of the content. Then you simply need to practice by doing problems at the end of the chapter or any practice problems given by the professor that are not in the book.
But then again, that’s how you normally study for any other subjects. For me, Biology was an exception since there aren’t that many practice problems. I had to read more carefully and memorize a lot of stuff, which was very new.
Thanks, Drum.
That’s what I am doing but it just seems so simple. Feels like I’m “missing” something and I’m fearful that once inside the exam, it’ll be like ‘where the heck did this come from’.
If you have the homework and sample problems down cold, you’ll be ahead of most of the people in your class and you should be okay in most math courses.