Do you want to learn how to study mathematics efficiently? Here’s the definitive way to learn math in a very effective way.
When you have to study math, you probably have a lot of material to study. A lot of problems and exercises that to solve them all, you need to dedicate many hours. You can not skip any because you know that everyone has a particular difficulty and you need to practice if you are on the exam, so you have to solve them all.
In addition, as you advance in your study, you feel more and more tired because you invest a lot of effort in discovering what steps need to be taken to reach the solution and in some problems it is not so simple.
If you are one of those who find it difficult to study, you must know how to motivate yourself to study mathematics.
Wouldn’t you like to study only what is really important? Imagine that you could choose which problems are more important with certainty, separating the straw from the grain and that on top of that, by studying the problems you have chosen, you would know that your grade would be much higher.
By studying fewer problems, not only do you invest less study time, but you also have a much clearer head and it is less difficult to understand the development of problems.
Today I want to talk to you about a method that I used when I had to study mathematics and that helped me to be more organized and much more efficient.
I discovered it in the penultimate year of high school and it took me some time to perfect it, but once I managed to carry it out, the benefits I obtained were very great: my grade went up considerably and reducing my effort and my study time. In other words, I became a much more efficient student.
I called it the 3-color method.
What does the 3-color method consist of?
The method basically consists of differentiating your problems and exercises into 3 groups:
Problems and exercises you understand
Problems and exercises you don’t understand
Problems and exercises that you don’t know if you understand them or not.
And since the method I have called the 3-color method, each group must be assigned a color.
And you will think and how is this going to help me to raise my math grade by studying less time?
I’ll explain it more slowly. You’ll see as you read it you’ll understand perfectly.
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Home of the method to study mathematics
As you well know, studying mathematics consists of trying to solve the exercises that have been explained to you in class, to check that you know how to do all the steps. That is to say, the most important thing is the development of the solution of the exercises.
That’s where we’re going to apply this method. There are two ways to start it:
On the one hand, when your teacher is explaining and begins to solve an exercise by way of example, what you copy from the blackboard, which you haven’t tried to solve, you should do with a blue pen. Here we have our first color: the blue pen.
The blue pen means that you haven’t tried to solve the exercise, so you don’t know if you understand it or not, because you copied it directly.
On the other hand, if your teacher proposes exercises for you to solve, either at home or there in class, you have to solve them with a pencil and here we have our second color: the pencil.
If you don’t know how to start solving them and you don’t write anything in pencil, don’t worry, because we’re going to see how to act in these cases.
The pencil means that you solved the exercise and therefore, you understood the steps to follow when solving the exercise.
We continue with the method. Once you have solved the exercises or at least tried them, then your teacher will correct them in class. If your development and your result coincide, great! mark it in some way as if you have done it well.
But, if you have made a mistake, correct it in red pen. This is our third color. If you’ve been spinning it but haven’t known how to start or you’ve been stuck at some point in the development, from that moment until the end of the exercise, copy your result into a red pen.
The red pen means that you had errors or doubts when you solved the exercise.
Now, if your teacher has proposed exercises for you to solve and you haven’t even tried, because you forgot to do them, because you haven’t had time or for whatever reason, once they are corrected, the result should be copied into a blue pen, since you don’t know if you understand it or not because you haven’t tried.
If you carry out this procedure from the beginning, the result is that you will have:
Pencil Written Solutions: Exercises that you know how to solve them or when you solved them you knew how to do it
Solutions written with a blue pen: Exercises you didn’t try to solve, so you don’t know if you understand them or not
Solutions (or part of them) written with a red pen: These are errors or mistakes you’ve made, doubts you need to understand.
As I told you at the beginning, you have 3 groups, each differentiated with a color.
How to study mathematics with the method of the 3 colors
How to study mathematics with the method of the 3 colors
Once you have your 3 groups differentiated in colors when it comes to studying them you can treat them differently and that’s where you’re going to start to be more efficient and make better use of your time.
The solutions that you have in pencil, you do not need to try from the beginning, because they are exercises that you already understand. With a brief review (or even that), it will be more than enough.
You have to pay special attention to all the solutions you have in red. They are mistakes you made or doubts you had in your day. Before studying, you should be in charge of solving your doubts, asking them to your maths teacher, because if you didn’t understand them before, the most normal thing is that you still don’t understand them.
Once you understand your doubts, you can repeat the exercises you have in red, to check that you reach the solution.
The most critical case is the exercises you have in blue. They are exercises that you have not tried, because you do not know a priori if you will have problems to solve them and it is possible that you do not have time to clear your doubts, because the date of the exam is very close.
Benefits of studying mathematics with the method of the 3 colors
Studying mathematics with this method allows you to focus your time and effort on your mistakes and doubts, that is to say, on the red and blue colours.
The ideal is to have as many pencil solutions as possible, avoid at all costs the blue color and clear all doubts detected with the red color, before you start to study.
To do this, of course, you should always try to solve the proposed exercises.
And if you want to speed up the process and boost your grades, you can always take mathematics classes online.
What do you think of the method? Are you going to use it from now on? Leave your answer in the comments.
