if you're bad at math I have good news today you're going to discover the mistakes you're likely making if you fix these three study habits you will be wondering why you ever thought math was hard in the first place how do I know that in sixth grade I was the most clueless person in my math class but after I fixed those study Mistakes by the time I got to high school I got fives on both AP stats and AP calc my sophomore year woo more importantly I've been a private math tutor for almost 10 years
and I see students doing the exact same bad habits when they do their homework and study math targeting those mistakes worked like magic two of my students couldn't crack 25 out of 36 on the ACT Math section but after I tutored them who math became their easiest section getting them both an overall score of 33 you ready to Ace Math With The A Team let's go consider a math problem in front of you okay you don't know what to do so you pull up a sample problem now all you do is replicate each step of
that example into your own problem just like copying a page of notes word for word boom it's solved great right no the textbook or teacher gave you a fish but you still have no idea how to fish because you are just going through the motions don't worry it's not just you and it's not your fault my students told me how their Math teachers just write a bunch of stuff on the board the teacher sits back and tells them to blindly copy it then when the students ask how or why the teacher just goes it's not
important that's not really your concern or doesn't seem to even get it themselves no wonder that then when I give my students a slightly different problem they couldn't solve it anymore and maybe that's your exact issue too you can do your homework but then when the test comes around it's like a foreign language even though you're technically supposed to know everything on that test the issue is that not only are you being a passive solver but you might not even know what terms are called you might say for example x with a little three on
top instead of X cubed all of these little things are really important to turn you into an active solver so here's the fix for each solution do two things as you're writing it out number one be able to State each step say for example first I combine like terms next I Square both sides finally I add three to both sides even better number two with each step you do say why you are doing it like I Square both sides because this gets rid of the ugly square root this example might sound obvious but I'm just
giving a trivial example cuz I can't be out here spitting derivatives just adapt it to whatever math class you're in here's the problem though even if you say it in your head there's no telling if you truly understand it that's the power of the fan technique when you explain a concept or solution to someone to make them able to understand it and as they explaining it you you will see your knowledge gaps if you can't find someone to vocalize Your solution with a hack is to film yourself explaining it watch it back and iterate this
also has some bonus benefits transition have you ever felt lost in math class maybe learning new Concepts feels harder and harder or maybe you miss points from silly errors that's because you are neglecting fundamentals these should be like knowing how to walk you can't run Sprint jump over hurdles if you can't even walk fixing this bad habit will solve both of those problems and more I've seen so so many kids understand and understand I have seen so many students be able to do high school level math operations but then they screw up the easiest step
of the problem because they didn't know the order of operations and then guess what they miss the points of the entire problem what a shame is that they get problems wrong because they couldn't divide fractions not because they can't do Algebra so next time you have difficulty with a math concept or problem break down every step and every term and study each piece of the puzzle make sure you understand it fully before putting it all back together like what does a fraction really even mean what does the concept of foiling even do how can I
apply it to other places when I multiply x 3r * x^2 why can I just add those exponents together and another when you have an inequality and you change change the signs on both sides why do you flip that less than or greater than sign these are all so essential transition thanks so much to my editors shout out Jacob and Sarah for helping me make these videos possible if you like my editors and to show them thank you for making it possible for me to continue helping you on YouTube then please drop a like and
comment thank you Jacob and Sarah Jacob with AK you're so smart I know you're so smart so why are you selling your yourself short you don't have to be a genius to be good at math because I certainly wasn't like I said in this video if I was actually a genius with a top 1% IQ then to be honest I probably wouldn't be sitting here right now I would be doing rocket science I would have also qualified for usao as many people say in my comments has this happened to you so many times a student
will Just Surrender themselves holding up that white flag saying I'm dumb when then I tell them just try for 5 more minutes I know you know what to do next and then boom they literally figure it out all on their own so please stop giving up that goes for life as well when you're pursuing something and it's not working out who's to say that trying for a few more minutes one more day taking one extra step will not pay off that sucks if success was literally on the next step and you just chose not to
take it here's a fix to improve prove your math grit three steps one with each part of the problem write down everything you know about it for example if it's a question asking about this number being even and how do you make it odd or something like that what do you know about even numbers I for example would write well an even number can be written as 2 N where n is an integer and in contrast I would also remember that an odd number can be written in the form 2 m + 1 where m
is an integer I don't know what math level you're at but if you are above elementary school you should probably know what that meant and if you don't well go study up number two just do something do a math step that is logical and is a real math step like don't make things up do something and see if that gets closer to what you want if not think about why that didn't get closer to your end goal what kind of format should your answer look like how can you get what you know closer to looking
like that number three if those both fail then study a little read up on the concepts and come back to the problem do not give up and just go to the answer key because remember if you just skip to the answer key you might just be trying to get that fish instead of learning how to fish overall golden mindset part you have to care the only numbers students care about nowadays is there social media following how many likes they got on that Tik Tok even if that's not you what do you care about if you
truly care about something you would show that you care if you really want to become a math God then start caring and showing like you care and care about the numbers and the fundamentals and what math really is people just want shortcuts and results but the only people that're cheating is themselves that's not the way math Works maybe shortcuts can fly in a lot of humanities classes but if you try to take shortcuts and you skim through the concepts instead of actually understanding well you are not going to be able to do well on math
test I guarantee that that's why even though I'm not a genius I can solve the math section on the ACT and sat each with 10 minutes to spare and get you perfect score here's proof and I actually did this last year when I was like 5 years out of high school math becomes as easy as knowing how to tie your shoelaces you have to care about your brain putting in quality reps just like your muscles would at the gym Dam hopefully that was a good Flex The A Team understands things holistically so this video actually
wasn't just all about math the golden mindset extends to your attitude towards life this is how you build your determination and problem solving skills if you run into a problem in life and your first instinct is to complain or ask for help my friend you will probably not farewell in math class classes either but if you're here and you're subscribed you're part of the a team and that will all change very soon you're on the right path for more advanced tips in building your problem solving skills you can check out my math channel here A+
math also linked below wait before you go can I ask you a favor if you made it this far you are probably not one of those silly people who comments under these videos it's just cuz you're asent so if you see someone comment that please help me reply something like no you just have no growth mindset and your races great job I hope you learned a little something today and I'll see you next time I just went to an event in person I talked to an aditions person and I had food in my teeth vlogging
is awkward I haven't done this in a while oh I'm not going to get in because I will forever be remembered as that girl who spoke with the little black thing right here hopefully the admissions person just thought I had a big teeth tooth Gap she was so very nice though so I hope that she can just think oh this is just a real person real people make mistakes and get food in their teeth that doesn't say anything about her professionalism anyway it was insane so I just got on through New York Subway earlier and
I look across the cart and two girls get on I'm like I know those people so two of my friends got on the same cart and while the subway was moving I walked over to them and was like hey what are you guys doing they're like hey we're going to this event come along and I'm like you know what I would love to this sounds so fun I was tempted because the other event ended early I literally follow them getting ready to transfer to another train all the way to Brooklyn and I think wait a
minute I was just slightly stressed by the amount of things I have to do that I haven't been doing because of wedding dress shopping I'm really not one to turn down these social events I know it's going to be a good time I feel fomo right now but I had to make a tough decision and say no this time I can't go even if I don't do real work tonight I should still rest so I can make my brain refreshed and able to do all the work I have to do walking back after rejecting going
to the party and leaving my friends feels kind of like oh this nagging feeling of what if I went what if I met someone cool what if H but you know you got to have conviction behind your choices unfortunately I don't have my mic so sorry this is a very raw Vlog that I haven't done in a while for this mini section of the video recently I've been trying to make these harder decisions of saying no even though I do prioritize is fun but to save my mental health and energy because life has just been
so chaotic lately this whole week I have been networking and I need to organize my very messy notes that I took at the admissions event it was on the iCloud Notes app on my phone and I was afraid that people were looking at me like oh this girl's texting not paying attention I'm like no I'm just so into this I'm actually taking notes so that's another fear I have these intrusive thought and being paranoid this is the day after that mini Vlog but I realized I forgot to reveal a program which I promised in the
previous mini Vlog so confusing but the program I'm applying to is drum roll please HBS that's Harvard Business School it's for the MBA but at Harvard hence why it makes sense because I'm planning to matriculate into an MBA anyway so 2025 fall it will be MIT Sloan or Harvard depending on if I get in and the logic behind this is Harvard does have a much larger Network that I think would be really beneficial for my purposes also because I just love getting to know a lot more different people I also love their case study approach
because it's all about learn by doing which I always advocate for to get the most out of your learnings I'm really excited but also nervous because I did get rejected from them before I didn't even get an interview which I was honestly surprised about because I think I have a lot of great qualities that they literally ask for but as we know the application process is very obscure and it's really a shot in the dark like at the event yesterday the panelists were asked what do you think was special about you that got you into
Harvard and they basically all said I have no idea I just applied on a whim so it's really hard to say I realized you know what I have nothing to worry about because either way I'm going to be fine I'm going to be a rock star even if I don't get into Harvard it would be great and fantastic and we would compliment each other so well if I do but it's not the end of the world just like I tell students who are applying to undergrad don't put too much stress on the program you get
into if you are a top school material you are going to be so successful no matter where you go anyway got to get to work now got to work wish me luck applying again to the big haul
