Buiding skills

The most important skill to solve a mathematics problem is the building skills such as choose the question based on the facts available. When there is a problem given to you, you need to understand it and work on the facts available in the problem. We need to decide if the problem requires addition, subtraction, multiplication or division.

We need to read the facts, understand it and choose the question which can be answered using the facts. Then solve the problem. Don't you think this is the initial step to be taken. Lets work on a problem

Exercise 1:- Jack has 29 first day covers. His father gave him 152 from his own collection. Which of the following question can be answered using the given facts?

a) How many more covers does Jack have than his brother John?
b) How many covers does Jack have in all?
c|) How many doubles does he have?

Look at the facts? Can you answer the question a and c? There is no answer to these questions because there is no information given in the question related to these questions. There are no facts that can give us an answer to these questions. But we can answer question b i.e. How many covers does Jack have in all?

We know that we need to add the two numbers to get the answer
29+152=181
Therefore we can say Jack has 181 covers in all.

Do you agree to my statements above? We need to build up skills of understanding the facts in the problem. Decide whether we need to add, subtract, multiply or divide and then solve the problem. Try building these skills in you and i am sure you are going to be an expert in mathematics. Let me know if this post has helped you? I would be glad to read your comments.