How do you feel about math?

Let’s take a minute to think about math and how we feel about it. Good memories or bad? Or both? If I were to draw an analogy about math and anything else, it would be a foreign language. You can’t forget what you learned in arithmetic and expect to do well in algebra, just like you can’t forget how to conjugate French verbs and expect to write a full sentence. Math requires a great foundation and, once that foundation is built, everything else comes after.  I am here to help you build that foundation. I am here to tell you that math isn’t supposed to be scary or cryptic or over your head and I’m not just saying this because I am a tutor, I am saying this because I have been there, staring at a problem and blanking, putting the pencil down, getting scared, when another second spent ‘braving the storm’ made all the difference.

Step 0 – Make Sure the product makes sense!

Say we’re given two matrices A and B, where

Are you looking to present college admissions committees with a competitive application for programs in engineering, science, math, finance, or economics? Math is a basis for all of these subjects, and demonstrating mastery in math can really help your applications. By coupling high scores on the SAT or ACT math section, SAT Math Level 2 Subject Test, and an AP math exam, you can bolster your portfolio to impress colleges. In this blog post, we’ll specifically focus on the Math Level 2 SAT Subject Test, and discuss ways to improve your score and go into the exam room feeling confident.

Whether you’re applying to a university with strict test requirements or you’d like to showcase your unique academic strengths on college applications, scoring well on the SAT Subject Tests can really help in the college admissions process. In this blog series, I’ll discuss some tips unique to individual Subject Tests in a variety of areas. This first post is on the Math Level 1 Subject Test, so let’s begin!

It’s a Tuesday night, and you’ve just remembered that you have a huge algebra 2 test tomorrow. Panic starts to sweep over you as you think back on all you’ve learned this semester. How will you ever succeed? You call up your friend to ask how you can study, and he calmly tells you he has just spent about an hour reviewing the main concepts from the unit, and he feels confident about the test. The question, then, is what is his secret?

There is a humorous, misguided stigma associated with math. Just the mere utterance of the word “math” conjures up, for many, the image of intimidating, arcane equations strewn about blackboards and calculators gone on the fritz. For many, math was a painful experience in grade school (and beyond) -- myself included! In fact, I did not become interested in pursuing a math major until my sophomore year of college. The purpose of this post is not to philosophize on the state of mathematics curriculum in America’s schools, but rather, to explain how I eventually saw meaning beneath the seemingly endless exercises.

SAT, ACT, SSAT, ISEE, GRE. What do these acronyms all have in common? Well, they’re all standardized tests, but more importantly, they all have multiple-choice math test sections. Despite whether or not they’re accurate indicators of student performance in the classroom, lab, or office, they are all essential for entry into some educational career path. So whether you want to be a lawyer or you want to get into a STEM-focused private high school, it helps to do well in a standardized, timed math test to get there. 

You’ve heard it before. Or you’ve said it. I’m not good at math.

I hear it from seventh graders struggling with fractions, high school students preparing to take the SAT, friends at a restaurant when splitting a check, and even from parents assuring me that their child’s own difficulties are in fact genetic.

And while I’ve heard it countless times, I’ve never actually met a student who was unable to improve their math skills. 

Don’t let the word “matrix” scare you off! Even if your only experience with them is from the movie The Matrix, you know enough to learn about how they can be used to recommend you movies you might like, including, if you haven’t seen it already, The Matrix.  Today, we'll go over matrix factorization by taking a look at Netflix!

Equations in math are useful but they’re also kind of inefficient – for each x value, you have to do a separate calculation to figure out what y is. Graphs take that equation and turn it into a visual, something you can look at and immediately see what happens at different values of x, how the function changes, and more!