Help for Math Word Problems
Many people have a hard time with math. When presented with word problems, it seems to become even more difficult. Math word problems pose many problems. People may not understand the question and too much information in the word problem may cause confusion. Regardless of the issue, word problems make up our everyday life. You may not need to know how to perform complex analysis on a daily basis, but we all encounter and need to know how to solve word problems fairly often, even if we don't realize it.
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Read Carefully
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Many people struggle with understanding the question in word problems. When you first read through a word problem, don't automatically begin by trying to solve the problem in the first sentence. You must read all the way through at least once before deciding what direction to go with the problem. Word problems often present too much information, so take the time to read carefully. Eliminate the useless information and underline or highlight the important information in the question.
Choose the Operation
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Choose the correct operation to solve the equation. As you read the problem, look carefully for keywords to indicate which operation(s) to use. A team of editors at LearningExpress suggests looking for the following keywords for each operation: Addition: combine, together, total, sum, and, plus, altogether, increase, both or more; Subtraction: taking away, difference, minus, decrease, left, more than, less than, fewer, or remain; Multiplication: times, product, factor, and occasionally increase, each, or every; Division: quotient, share, percent, out of, average, and occasionally per or each.
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Plan and Estimate
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Once you have chosen the operation(s) you will use, draw graphs or images to help you visualize the problem and come up with a plan. You will then write an equation that will include numbers and symbols to help you solve for the missing variable. After coming up with an equation, estimate to get an idea of the final answer.
Solve and Check Your Answer
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Once you have solved for the missing variable, go back and check your answer by inserting it into the original word problem and comparing it with your estimate to see if it makes sense. For instance, if the problem asks you to figure out how many students make up a third of a class of 27 students, you might have estimated by rounding and guessed that the answer should come close to 10 students since a third of 30 equals 10. If you solved the problem and got an answer of 26 2/3, you would know that you likely used the wrong operation since the answer does not make sense compared to your estimate. If you got the correct answer of nine students, you could feel comfortable with your answer since you estimated 10 students.
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