Are You a Math or a Mouse?
Today’s post is brought to you by MBA House. To learn more about MBA House, visit the website (find a info on an MBA House promotion DiversityMBAPrep.com Resources page)
Most people think math is hard. They’re not wrong, but they’re not always right either. Yes, the GMAT examines some difficult, abstract ideas, but these ideas are grounded in reality, as is the test-taker. This means you and math are speaking the same language, even if it doesn’t appear this way. Approaching the quantitative section with an attitude that math makes more sense than it doesn’t, even for the most ardent “mathaphobe”, is the first step to doing well. The second step is not being intimidated by the challenge. In any math problem, some things might be clear and some things might not. By focusing on what you know, and not worrying about what you don’t know, you’re setting yourself up for success. So, are you a math, or are you a mouse?
Many minds have fallen victim to mathematics, and some rightfully so. Heavy ideas are communicated through this field, which may require deep thought and a clear vision in one’s imagination. As such, certain math questions might just be too difficult for a certain person to solve. Amateurs often experience this feeling of complete confusion mixed with helplessness, but so to do experts. And just as experts often feel the sensation of successfully solving a math problem, amateurs can experience the same satisfaction. It doesn’t depend on your mathematical clout per se, but much more so on your approach.
An all too common tale is someone reading a math problem, realizing some of the problem’s parts don’t make sense, feeling overwhelmed, and then completely shutting down. The initial confusion becomes an insurmountable obstacle, but this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. To remedy this math malady is to choose optimism over pessimism. Just as an optimist focuses on the good in a situation, rather than the bad, a skillful problem-solver focuses on what they actually do understand in a problem, rather than what they don’t. And by keeping their focus on the simple, and thus comprehendible, aspects of the question, the problem-solver is choosing not to be intimidated by the other parts, the scary unknown.
This is such a crucial point, because so many “victims” of math problems are often their own victimizers! Before they even begin the problem, they have greatly reduced their likelihood of success by holding onto pessimistic attitudes. Even if you only understand one tiny bit of the problem, you need to start with that and see where it leads. It’s not uncommon for the beginning of a math problem and the end of the problem (that is, the successful solving of the problem) to require a large conceptual leap. But a pragmatic problem-solver won’t look at the task as completing one large conceptual leap. Rather, the pragmatist sees the solution through a series of simple, and smaller, conceptual steps. At first, it might not be clear which simpler problems, and how many, need to be solved, but as one moves along, these simpler steps typically expose themselves.
A significant contributor to mathematical intimidation is the language in which it’s expressed. Unfamiliar terms and phrasing, along with the careful attention required in the reading (like with this blog post), are enough to scare off many mathematicians-in-the-making. Yes, the lingo is confusing at first, but it’s also highly explicit. So, taking the optimistic attitude, the language is, once learned, actually quite useful because there is almost no ambiguity in its meaning. This ties back in with the idea of only focusing on what makes sense, and not on the other way around. For example, the sentence, “The product of x and the sum of a and b is 8” might be confusing to someone. But it certainly doesn’t need to be when we consider that almost everyone understands every word of this sentence individually, if not collectively. This is the whole point. Focus on what you understand: “the product” means the multiplication of two or more numbers, “the sum” means the addition of two or more numbers. So the sum of a and b is a + b, and the product of x and the sum of a and b is x(a + b). And we’re told that this product is 8. Thus, x(a + b) = 8 and we’ve accurately expressed that sentence mathematically.
So are you a math or are you a mouse?
