It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation.    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

 
I have often told students that becoming good at math is a lot like becoming good at a sport or at playing an instrument – practice is extremely important. Hours and hours of practice.

However, there is a [...]

This post is the first of a series of hints and techniques for students of math, all based on my experience as a math tutor and teacher…
Much of what a student must learn in a math course amounts to mastering the steps in a well defined procedure. For example, multiplying two binomials (e.g. (x-3)(y2+z) ) [...]