#math study help

Hopefully, no one had the misfortune of taking this class, but just in case, I figured I should upload my study guide for this too. Hope it helps you poor souls who took this class! :)

Here’s Part 1: Basic Definitions/Operations. Part 2 in just a moment!

Just summarizing some things I thought were useful / interesting from this guide. I’d totally copy-paste what they said because the writing is quite polished, but then you may as well just read the handout.

At lectures (p. 8): If you get the material, copy only the essentials. When you go over your notes, you’ll have no trouble filling in gaps. If you don’t get it, copy everything you possibly can, so that when you go over your notes you have material to work from.

Between lectures (p. 9): Annotate your notes. If you don’t get it, work through it to try to understand -- compare with the text. Then, try a couple problems on the material, and it’s okay if you can’t do them. Finally, read ahead in the text.

Asking for help from peers (p. 15): First try the problem as best as you can on your own. When you ask for help, ask either for a hint or a sketch of the solution. If you have to ask for a full solution, get them to explain orally, because then it helps them as well.

Understanding things: Looking at trying to understand different formulations of things really helps (e.g. while comparing lecture notes and texts).

An idea for studying: Make a timetable for studying that basically makes school into “at least a full-time job”. Not sure how I feel about that one.

So that’s about it for the first bit that actually talks about how to study. The next part (which I’ll write about later maybe) is on how to do proofs basically.

(created to be used in conjunction with the Great Book of Derivatives)