advice on how to improve maths skills

rhiannon red

are there any books out there to improve mathematical thinking and reasoning? im hoping to do project maths for the leaving cert and although i did alright in amths for the junior cert i think i could learn to enjoy the subject more if i had stronger maths skills. im getting the book escher,godel and bach by douglas hofstander. will this book help for project maths and improving mathematical thinking? could you suggest any other titles? is the book mathematician's deligth by w.w.sawyer helpful?

rjt

I think part of the reason maths in school is so dull is it's very artificial and repetitive: here is a technique, here is how to apply it, here are 20 repetitive applications. Maths is more fun when the problems are a little less obvious. So you might get something from a math problem solving book.

One such book is The Art and Craft of Problem Solving by Paul Zeitz. It says the book is for people who "know high school math pretty well as well as maybe some calculus", but I think you'd get by just fine with good Junior Cert knowledge. Certainly most of the book will be accessible anyway.

"The Art of Problem Solving" by Ruscyzk series might be good, I've never read them though. Probably start with Volume 2. This stuff will actually cover Leaving Cert topics, so it's way more practical from that point of view, but it also means it will be closer to a textbook which might be a bad thing.

A more classic suggestion would be "How to Solve It" by Polya, but if I was in your position I'd probably enjoy the two books above more (because Polya's book is a more general book, it's short, and doesn't have problems). It's really cheap though, and it's actually stocked in regular bookstores (Hodges Figgus often have it).

I read a bit of "Godel, Escher, Bach" when I was in secondary school. I never finished it (not that I didn't like it, I've just got a pretty bad attention span), but I'm not sure it'll if it would help as much as the books listed above. I think actually getting down and trying to solve some real problems is the best way to get into the subject.

Anyway, I guess everyone is different, so this could be bad advice. If you do try the problem book approach, keep in mind that the problems often won't be easy (and if the problems are all easy then you're not going to learn anything). But if you stick with it, Leaving Cert maths problems will seem a lot easier.

TheBody

rhiannon red wrote: »

are there any books out there to improve mathematical thinking and reasoning? im hoping to do project maths for the leaving cert and although i did alright in amths for the junior cert i think i could learn to enjoy the subject more if i had stronger maths skills. im getting the book escher,godel and bach by douglas hofstander. will this book help for project maths and improving mathematical thinking? could you suggest any other titles? is the book mathematician's deligth by w.w.sawyer helpful?

You have prob noticed that a lot of the stats and probability comes from real life situations. You should consider reading the newspapers and watching the news more. Think about the implications of the news to everyday life. For example there was a question on mortgage arrears on an exam paper. A lot of students find questions like this difficult because there is a lot of information to digest even though the maths may be simple enough. If you start exposing yourself to this stuff more, if won't be as intimidating.