It is not uncommon to hear students praying just to score a passing grade on a math test. This fear of math is often acquired more from society than through personal experience. A study suggests that nearly 93% of the US population suffers from math anxiety. Hence, peers and acquaintances often instill that math is a complicated subject. Nonetheless, it makes you avoid the subject. If you want to excel in math and are unsure how to effectively study for a math test, read this blog. Here, we have shared valuable tricks to study the subject, considering the different issues you suffer from.
How to Effectively Study for a Math Test
Here are some effective ways to study for your Middle School Study Tips For Academic Success:
Get Rid of Bad Habits
A popular adage goes, “Work smart instead of working hard.” However, to study math hard and know how to effectively study for a math test, you must get rid of the following bad habits:
Don’t Rush at the Last Minute
Avoid waiting until the last moment to complete your math syllabus. Filling yourself to the gills at the last hour does not offer many benefits in the long run. Instead, if you complete a section of a math chapter every night, you can gain better results. It will help you remember what you have learned and retain it for a longer time.
Avoid Scanning Your Math Textbook
Math is a practical subject. Therefore, avoid treating it like a theoretical topic. Read your text and reference books and solve the examples. You will find that many problems have missing steps. Some algebraic expressions may have stopped providing an entire solution, and arithmetic fractions may not have been reduced completely. These missing steps indicate you must hold the gear to the problem and find the solution all by yourself. It will help you master the techniques and know how to arrive at an accurate solution.
Highlight liberally
Some students often take the aid of highlighting and underlining texts, even in the case of math. Don’t fall into this trap. Highlight occasionally. For example, when you note the theories and examples of math modules, use your highlighter to connect the ideas in your notes through the method of color coding. You can also use it to bring attention to the most significant section of your writing, etc. You must keep in mind that highlighting is never a substitute for note-taking, though it may complement your note-taking process.
Never Keep Your Eyes on the Solution
Every math textbook, reference book, or workbook has a solution to the math problems at the end of the book or chapter. Don’t keep your eyes locked on the solution and say, “I know the steps to find the solution.” Having the knowledge and implicating it on paper or screen are two diagonally opposite things. Work on the problems from scratch and use every step to find an accurate solution. It will help you find answers to your question, “How to effectively study for a math test.”
Also Read: Math Research Topics That Will Boost Your Academic Scores
Gain Pre-Knowledge of the Subject
Think about the feeling you have when you can crack “something” in detail for the first time. You get an emotional boost and confidence in your capabilities. However, this feeling might be miles away from you if “something” indicates solving math. Nonetheless, prior knowledge of the subject can help you avoid the situation. Therefore, prepare yourself before every math class.
Begin your preparation with the following:
- Note down examples or definitions, and list any questions that you could not understand from the explanations available in the textbook.
- Create a study group with your friends and start solving problems together with your group members on the topics that will be lectured in the class. Additionally, use this group to brush up on your knowledge of previously learned chapters.
Taking these simple steps will not make you overwork. Instead, you can work more effectively. For example, you can point out the areas that you are struggling with when teachers discuss the topic in class. Moreover, you can get a better insight into the math topic once you have a basic knowledge of the concepts and the math problems. It will help you solve the complicated parts of math quite easily.
Participate Actively in your Class
You cultivate and promote your learning skills through your participation in the learning process. It can be through practice, review, or discussion. Moreover, your critical thinking elevates through active learning, but you cannot expect your teacher to embed it in you. It has to take place through personal enthusiasm. Now, you don’t need to be an extrovert to be an active participant; you can do it privately as well. Simply copy the lectures from the previous notes. It will help cement your knowledge more strongly. Then, develop a formula sheet to review the main concepts. Finally, during the class, note the discussion by participating publicly or privately. Your active participation will help you understand new information quite easily and remember the newly learned concept at least till the day of the test
Reduce Your Math Anxiety by Practicing Problems
Math is not a game you play as a spectator. To ace the game, you need the 3 most important skills:
- Participation
- Perseverance
- Practice
Practice is the only way to get better at a task. Remember, your brain is similar to any other muscle in your body; the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. Therefore, by practicing, you develop your brain’s muscle memory.
Practicing also helps you in the following ways:
- You become more skilled at taking the steps to reach a solution.
- Become familiar with the complications of each question.
- Become confident about your capabilities.
To put it in simple terms, when you practice, you learn to respond faster to a task you have at hand. Therefore, when you appear in a test, you can easily ascertain which method will give you the optimum result in the least amount of time. Hence, it helps you save time from thinking about the way you must begin your task. As a result, you become less anxious.
Also Read: 10 Importance of Math in Our Daily Life
Kill Your Procrastination with the Pomodoro Technique
Studying for a math test is most often tedious. Then, is there any way to prepare for a math test without stressing about it? We suggest using the Pomodoro (tomato) technique. It trains the brain to pay attention to small, intense sections of the task. Here is a simple way to implement this technique:
Step 1: Select a task. Let us assume it is preparing for a math test.
Step 2: Put a timer or alarm (called the Pomodoro) for 25 minutes.
Step 3: Concentrate on your task for 25 straight minutes.
Step 4: When the timer goes off, reward yourself. Take a bite of your favorite chocolate, talk to a friend, read a chapter of a book, take a small walk, or listen to your favorite track.
Step 5: Repeat the entire process.
When you find that you can hold your concentration for 25 minutes easily, you can extend the target to 30 or 35 minutes, but never cross an hour during this process. It will break your focus automatically.
Modify Your Study Environment To Bring a Change To Your Test Scores
When the question “how to effectively study for a math test” puzzles your mind, try to bring a change to the environment in which you study and then see the result. Nothing is indeed more comfortable than sitting on the sofa, putting your worksheet on your lap, and solving your math problems. However, it is not an effective way to retain the information you go through in your math book or the method you use to solve the problem. You have to remember that your body is already tired at the end of the day when you sit with your studies. Giving it a comfortable and cozy environment will make you yawn rather than help you concentrate. Then, how should you develop your study environment? Here are a few simple ways:
- Go to a quiet, well-ventilated, and well-lit room. Sit on a chair and study at a table.
- Bring all you need to study for the math test to the table. It includes your books, worksheets, geometry set, water bottle, calculator, periodic tables, pen, pencil, eraser, etc.
- Silence all your distractions.
Then sit down to study. It will help you concentrate and complete your daily agenda more quickly.
Teach Others to Enjoy Effective Results of Learning
A study suggests that when you spend time studying subjects or concepts you have learned before, you enhance your retention skills more than those who simply revise the learned tasks. This act of recalling information without looking (called retrieval practice) will give you the same result as teaching others.
You can apply the retrieval practice to recall your notes, formulas, vocabulary, or steps of equations. However, if you don’t like verbalizing your words, set a timer and write all that comes to mind regarding the math chapters you studied on a blank sheet.
Moreover, you can also implement this retrieval practice for studying directly from the textbook. For example, when you go through the theories and principles of any math module, recall the information after you read it.
Create a Study Sheet for Last Minute Revision
It is also important that you think about how to effectively study for a math test at the last minute. Some will suggest you highlight the crucial sections and go through them on the day before the exam, while others suggest giving your brain a rest on the last day before the exam. However, we have found that nothing works as effectively as going through a study sheet. When you prepare for your math test during the entire semester, build a summary of every module of the maths syllabus. Collect the key information from the textbook and notes, and build your study guide. It can include formulas, theorems, concepts, solutions to the most complicated problems, etc. Then, for last-minute preparation, quickly review the notes.
Also Read: How to Solve Math Assignment Problems Faster?
Conclusion
A practical subject like math requires both solving problems and learning theories. Merely studying your textbook and notes will never be useful in helping you attain the desired score on your math test. Here, we have discussed the simplest tricks that answer your question, “How to effectively study for a math test.” Use them appropriately to see the difference in your math test grades.
