- #1
andytoh
- 359
- 3
Any suggestion on how to improve your reading fluency with proofs of theorems?
It's frustrating to spend over 1 hour to read a proof of a theorem that is under 1 page long (or not understanding the proof altogether). Even when every subtopic within a proof is already known, I find that that one of the main stumbling blocks is forgetting the meaning of symbols and results established within the proof, causing you to spend time backtracking within the proof. But if this is the only problem, then it's just a problem of short-term memory, which I don't think you can do much about. It's definitely more than that though. Drawing pictures always helps to remember what is what, but I don't find it to be enough to be able to read a difficult proof smoothly.
Perhaps reading shorter and easier proofs of easier theorems for practice? Does doing more exercises help much in this regard?
It's frustrating to spend over 1 hour to read a proof of a theorem that is under 1 page long (or not understanding the proof altogether). Even when every subtopic within a proof is already known, I find that that one of the main stumbling blocks is forgetting the meaning of symbols and results established within the proof, causing you to spend time backtracking within the proof. But if this is the only problem, then it's just a problem of short-term memory, which I don't think you can do much about. It's definitely more than that though. Drawing pictures always helps to remember what is what, but I don't find it to be enough to be able to read a difficult proof smoothly.
Perhaps reading shorter and easier proofs of easier theorems for practice? Does doing more exercises help much in this regard?
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