Having a sound set of mental math skills is something capable of making you a standout candidate among the crowd for your own personal good. Hence, the importance of these skills should never be ignored in any possible way, especially when you think of all those competitive exams where time is considered to be of the essence.
Now, there are several proven ways through which you can improve your mental math skills in the best possible manner. We will discuss a few of them in detail in this article. But before we delve right into them, we would like to discuss a few reasons as to why you should strive hard to improve your mental math skills, on the whole. So let’s begin.
Why improve your mental math skills
Source- Flickr
Mental math comes with its own set of benefits. You should practice it regularly for:
- Improving your concentration and focus.
- Enhancing your discipline, endurance, and determination.
- Training your mind to think from a factual or logical point of view.
- Sharpening up your memory and observation skills.
- Exploring multiple solutions to a particular problem [Finding the best and the quickest solution should always be your priority; mental mathematics helps in that].
- Developing a problem-solving mindset [You will never be intimidated by problems, however, complex they might appear to be].
Tips to improve your mental math skills
If you are really serious about improving your mental mathematics skills, on the whole, consider sticking to the following tips as closely as possible for your own personal benefit.
1. Master simple operational arithmetic
Your skills in basic operational arithmetic will never go out of fashion irrespective of whether you take up mathematics in future or not.
The very same skills can determine your fate in competitive exams, which, in turn, can also decide the fate of your academic career for the good or for the bad. So never take these skills for granted. Practice them religiously to improve your mental math skills, on the whole.
P.S. Also, remember that the more you practice, the faster you get. The faster you get, the quicker you remember. Small things like these can make all the differences in your career either for your good, or for your bad. So practice all those little additions, subtractions, multiplications, and divisions religiously in your free time, and you may actually surprise yourself by instantly figuring out the fact that 70,154 is a direct multiple of 7 as soon as you are asked to do so.
2. Practice table and chart interpretations
Source- Wiki
Choose any table or any chart from any textbook of yours. Even the internet can come in handy for this purpose. It doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you do.
Anyway, choose your chart/table, analyze the represented facts and figures, perform quick calculations as per requirement, and then come up with a logical interpretation of the chart/table that cannot be rejected in any possible manner. The key (of this activity) is to do it as quickly as possible. This can help a lot in improving your mental math skills for good.
3. Learn shortcut math tricks
You can consult several books and tutorials to know about the different shortcut tricks of solving a certain math problem.
Remember, as far as competitive examinations are concerned, time is always of the essence. You don’t have the luxury to spend 5 minutes straight on a particular problem. You have to accelerate things up. These shortcut tricks can help.
Here’s a short video to get you started.
4. Engage yourself in puzzles and brain teasers
Brain games and puzzles are a great way to enhance your mental math and problem-solving abilities at one, and the same time. So use them to your advantage.
Plenty of options are available in the market today that can come in handy for this purpose of yours. A few of them are:
- Board puzzle games,
- Tactile puzzles like the Rubik’s cube,
- Puzzle apps, and so on.
A final word:
The best way to improve your mental math skills is to practice them at all possible times. So compute anywhere, anytime whenever you feel like it. Numbers are everywhere. You will just have to keep your eyes open to find out the same.
With that, we’ll bring this article to a close for now. Hope you had a great read.
Very good information you have provided. I like #2. Practice table and chart interpretations – This will definitely help a lot in improving your mental math skills for good.
very nice article i really like it good job keep it up…
Realy nice info about Mental Math how to incise Skills. I think it will help for kids.
Nice Infomation about mental math skills.
Very nice and helpful articles sir! I want ask a question please help sir …
Good information about maths & it’s very helpful article .
I love mathematics and I am much impressed by reading your article. Thanks for sharing such vaulable information.