Math Is Fun Forum

Zephyr

Guest

Planning on studying math for the college entrance exam, need help

Hi, everyone!

I'm preparing myself for the next year's college entrance exam, and I hope that 10-11 months of intensive study regime will be enough time for me to pass it. I would like your opinion on it to see if such a thing is possible and if there is anything that needs to be changed about my study program.

The entrance exam which is on July, 1st is only 10 math-based questions from a random selection of topics listed here: pastebin(.)com/8yKZ26XY

Now, here's the thing. All those topics that were listed in the above PasteBin link are the topics that are officially recommended on the college's site that students need to study for the exam, and what I'm curious about that is: Is 10-11 months enough time to study all these topics to be able to pass at least the majority of the questions correctly?

I have to admit that unfortunately, the last time I studied math was at high school, which was almost 7 years ago now, and seeing how I didn't use anything else other than basic arithmetic in my day-to-day life, I've forgotten all of the topics I studied back in high-school

To make matters worse, my studying back in the day consisted of nothing but rote learning and memorizing just enough to get a passing grade, sometimes I managed to get a perfect score, but those moments were rare.

As far as learning goes, I never had a problem with it. I understood what I was studying fairly quickly, and I never found math so "troubling" as other students did, the only problem is as I mentioned before, I only tended to memorize things and rote learn what I was supposed to learn, which in turn lead me to this situation where I forgot most of the things I've learned before. So now, with such bad knowledge of math, is this time that I allocated for studying enough to encompass about 80% of those topics? I'm not looking to ace the entrance exam (although that would be ideal), but the more points I can get, the better.

Like I said before, I do plan on having an intensive study regime to be able to achieve this.

And, here's what my study plan looks like:

I plan to start studying as soon as possible, hopefully by August (things in life just keep getting in the way right now). When I start, I'm going to go and repeat everything from 5th - 8th grade (this is mostly because I believe that if my fundamentals are bad, so I want to remind myself of what I've learned throughout those years and fill in any gaps that I might have, so as to not make the 9-12 material difficult)

My self-study resources will comprise mostly of:

KhanAcademy
PatrickJMT
Professor Leonard
MIT OpenCourseWare
Worksheets found on the internet for homework

Additionally, if you have any recommendations for what websites or resources (books, videos, etc.) I should use them aside from these ones, feel free to recommend them. I could use anything that's good right now.

In the beginning, my study will be light, consisting of only 3-4 hours a day, 5 days per week (1 - 2 hours more, if it's something hard), but as I'm nearing the entrance exam, I'll go with the more and more intensive regime, like 4-5 hours a day, then 6-7h a day, 6x a week, etc.
More than 8 hours is something I don't think I'll be able to accomplish, just to avoid burning myself out.

Starting from September or October, I'll also include a private tutor who prepares students for these entrance exams, and I plan to go on those study sessions once a week to let him see how much I've progressed, and if there's anything that I don't know or am stuck on, to let him explain it to me, etc.
And that's pretty much it regarding my study plan. I'd like to hear your opinion on this and if there's anything you think I should change.

Also, out of all those topics listed above, the students I've contacted who have done those tests from previous years have told me that out of all those topics, the ones that appear the most frequently on tests are the following: (2, 6, 12, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24)

The tests in these previous 6-7 years are almost all the same, except with different numbers and wordings.

Another thing that I'd like to ask is, should I just ignore the 5-8 material, and focus on the high school stuff immediately? The reason why I wanted to go through the 5-8 was to refresh my memory of the basics and fill in the holes where I'm lacking. Is it better to do this, or is it better to ignore it and go immediately for the high-school stuff?

Also, in your opinion which of these topics would you focus more on, and which ones would you skip (if any)?

One last thing that I should mention is that the test itself is not scored based on a "Correct/Incorrect" answer, but rather on effort. Each question can get you 6 points, and there are 10 questions in total. If you try to answer a question but get it wrong, you can still get graded from 1 to 5 points, 6 if you answer correctly, 0 if you don't write anything down, or write down something irrelevant.

And that's all I have to say!

I'd like to hear your opinion on this whole situation and any suggestions you guys can offer me.

Thanks in forward, and apologies for such a long post!

Mathegocart

Member

Registered: 2012-04-29

Posts: 2,226

Re: Planning on studying math for the college entrance exam, need help

Hello Zephyr,
Speaking from my experience of running through the education system here in the good ol' U S of A, I can tell you that the vast majority of subjects, topics, and problems were of relative ease to me. Some necessitated a bit of elbow grease, but nothing too much to work out, really.
Your study plan's time schedule sounds robust to me, and I'm glad that you have the resources to acquire a tutor to help you work the more convoluted topics out. That'll no doubt bolster your understanding and your aptitude at using the tools in your mathematical repertoire.
Good to know the test structure has stayed (roughly, it sounds anyways) similar for the past couple of years. Should help you plan for any bumpy roads ahead.
As for grades 5-8, speaking from my experience as before, there wasn't any serious reviewing that I needed to do for more advanced topics. You can allocate some time to those areas, but hopefully not too much.
About recommendations for additional websites/resources that would (hopefully, anyways) prove particularly productive for your mathematical journey, I'd suggest going through some AMC problems—in case you don't recall, they're artfully and shrewdly-written competitive math problems that are given to kids in middle/high school—from the past. In particular, I'd propound you to look through the AMC 12/AIME exams, hosted by the great folks at AoPS(Art of Problem Solving).
The folks at AoPS also have a thriving, expansive community forum packed with a plethora of deftly crafted math problems that'll surely hone your skills.
BTW, I was going to recommend Brilliant.org, but I've perused through the website and they've... decided to obliterate the community section(which, at least last time I checked in mid 2017-early 2019, was thriving with amiable conversations and a plethora of astute people writing some rather perspicacious problems and eloquently-written wiki articles. Seems like they removed the community section for some rather farcical reasons(presumably in an avaricious pursuit of profit, which is frankly rather sad.)
They also have an extensive YouTube channel w/ the one and only Richard Rusczyk, where he dives into those aforementioned AMC problems and solves them while laying out his thought process to help others with his impressive insight. Here's a representative example involving some 3D geometry—which you mentioned was important.
As for what topics I would focus on, I'd lean on 6(Vieta's formulas), 12(Exponentials, to some extent), 16(Logarithms, again to some extent), 19(Arithmetic and geometric progressions and sequences, which can get tricky. Although Brilliant's shamefully removed their community section, their wiki, written mainly by the aforementioned community, is still rather excellent. Check out the wiki articles about arithhmetic progressions and geometric progressions.), 20(Combinatorics can also get messy fast), 23(Planimetrics involving triangles, circles, and quadrilaterals. Personally I've never heard planimetrics outside of a real-world engineering context, but just through the catch-all term of "geometry". But yeah, I'd really invest some time there. Personally, geometry was never a point of particular ease for me—there'd always be some deception just around the corner(pun not intended)), and last but certainly not least, 24(Stereometry / Solid geometry. If you thought 2D geometry was a colossus of catastrophe... 3D geometry is... one more dimension of perplexing, intricate nonsense to deal with. At least for me, I'd definitely consider allocating quite a bit of time there.)
For the scoring system there, that'd be typical in most high school exams involving you to write out your work.
Also, I don't think (but it's been a while anyways) that you can reply to your own posts as a guest. Try registering up on this storied forum!

In any case, good luck on your circuitous but (hopefully) rewarding journey!

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The integral of hope is reality.
May bobbym have a wonderful time in the pearly gates of heaven.
He will be sorely missed.