Stop Making Stupid Mistakes: Improve Your Math Skills with These Tips!

[MathematicalPhysicist]

for the title question, my answer is stop living.

cause life is about making those mistakes, and the more you interact the more you will make mistakes.

 

[guguma]

It is much better to make a simple mistake and look back to it for a good laugh, than to insist on the truth about a horrible wrongdoing.

If you want to accomplish great things, small mistakes are nothing (I hate time limited tests or competitions just because of this reason). But if you are writing a thesis with an intention to prove that stars are actually tied to a celestial dome with gigantic steel strings and making no small mistakes then you just judge yourself.

In a quantum mechanics test I got a horrible mark from a question just because I miscalculated a stupid integral due to constants (horrible handwriting I guess). I discussed the answer of the particular question with a friend after the test, he said to me "dude, I memorized the solution of that problem from the solutions manual, I did not work it out" in my amazement. Guess what he got full marks...

MORAL:

I can work that question out whenever I need, and many similar ones, if I make a mistake it will come out sooner or later and I will correct it, the other guy can't.

Damn, I hate the education system, just throw us some money and food and let us think and study in peace without rushing anything will you!

 

[glueball8]

Damn, I hate the education system, just throw us some money and food and let us think and study in peace without rushing anything will you!

I guess you can quit school like Einstein...

 

[guguma]

I guess you can quit school like Einstein...

The essence of the problem abides in your suggestion. Why should Einstein quit school to be Einstein?

And no I would not quit school, if you are serious in your suggestion.

 

[cristo]

I think we should stop using calculators...

I don't like this suggestion. Maybe in school children should be encouraged to use calculators as little as possible, but I don't see the point in memorizing multiplication tables etc once you're through high school.

 

[Sheneron]

I think prevention of mistakes is better strategy then searching for mistakes you could have possibly made. What I do is to take time and answer each question carefully and fully. I answer a question and check my work with each step in order to prevent mistakes. Whenever I finish I never go back and check my work because I take my time and have no need to check over work that was already checked. I find its more beneficial to spend time answering a question completely and correctly versus doing the test fast in order to save time checking you work at the end.

There is no need to check for mistakes when you know you have answered the question correctly.

 

[glueball8]

I don't like this suggestion. Maybe in school children should be encouraged to use calculators as little as possible, but I don't see the point in memorizing multiplication tables etc once you're through high school.

Well I'm in high school. Hmm this year they changed the AMC 12 to no cal. and that killed me... (I knew the day on the contest). I don't mean for everything, like trying to divide 1236543241234/23452 you have to use the cal but for simple stuff we should try not to...

Ps. lol what my mom says...

 

[xfoo]

I think we should stop using calculators...

I agree with this when the student is still learning the math (beyond this, use whatever you need to be efficient). I guess I am a fan of learning 'by hand' before using the tools that make it easier, instead of just jumping straight to the tools. I see people use calculators all the time and don't even recognize when they have punched in something wrong because they have no intuitive feel for numbers.