Math is a theoretical and analytical subject; rather, mathematics can be considered as a pressuring subject sometimes. However, math can appear to be easy once you thoroughly understand all the concepts easily and effortlessly. To do that, the only thing a student should do is PRACTICE. If a student has done enough practice and has crystal clear concepts, doing math can be super fun and an enjoyable activity.
Here, we will tell you why a general math quiz is crucial for students’ academic development.
Why Are Quizzes Important for Children?
To learn math properly, students should regularly engage with the material which is taught. For many topics, particularly at initial levels, this kind of engagement is often achieved through the solution of the given problems that the teacher provides. By practising these techniques, the student is now capable of developing fluency in solving methods which can lead them to lay a firm foundation for studying future topics.
Such practice is only possible if appropriate and helpful feedback to the students’ solution is given on time and regularly, which would help them improve their speed, accuracy, and solving methods. If the feedback is late or not given at the right time, students answering practice questions may use different or wrong methods to solve the questions and lead to misconceptions.
The beginning of widespread internet connections has aided the provision of alternative methods of practise and feedback, naming a few online quizzes with immediate solutions. Taking such quizzes with immediate feedback allows providing feedback created as per students’ answers, highlighting an error or a misconception.
Selection of questions in quizzes should be done very carefully, including some hard brain teasers that require a recognizable level of aptitude. A math quiz should be entertaining and should make your brain work tremendously hard.
Mathematics quizzes are great for practising math, and they develop students’ speed, accuracy, and cognitive thinking ability and, most importantly, boost their self-confidence.
Quizzes are mostly multiple-choice questions (MCQs) or questions that can be answered in one word or sentence.
Taking quizzes with a set timer helps you increase the speed of solving problems & also improve time management. Not only that, based on the type of quiz that you take can further help you cover a wide area of concepts in a short time. For instance, if you take a quiz based on a particular chapter, you can prepare for almost all the topics of the chapter simultaneously with the help of a single quiz or a mock test rather than spending your time revising each topic individually, which often leads us to forget the ones we learned before.
If you’ve freshly learned a concept, it’s advantageous to take a mock test on it as soon as possible. This way, you’ll spend more time with a concept that will help you identify the parts that you can solve easily & the ones where you get stuck. So you can spend your time preparing for the tough parts. As they say, practice makes a human perfect. However, if you’re well-acquainted with the topic, you should take timed tests so that you can increase your solving speed.
It’s better to prepare with a timer during revision time for exams because sometimes we know the answer to a question, but we can’t even reach that question due to improper time management.
Solved Examples
Multiple-choice questions are the test items that require you to have a stronghold on the fundamentals of a topic or a subject.
These test items offer several answer choices. The test prompt (or question) is the “stem” for which you choose one or more of the answer options. Example-
Which of the following is the formula for the perimeter of a square:
- P = 4a
- P = 2(l + w)
- P = a + b + c
- P = 2πr
As we can see in the above example, you have to know at least one concept of the area of a square to answer this question correctly. However, you can be familiar with other concepts as well. Still, if you’re not, you can look it up on the internet & you’ll know that the other options are the formulae for other shapes such as rectangle, triangle & circle, respectively. As I suggested earlier, we can see in this example that one question helped us learn formulae of three different mathematical shapes.
Other than this, it helps us practice approximation which is a really useful tool for daily life. For instance, say we have to solve –
(22.99 + 17.01) ÷ 1.998 × 3.997 – 41.998 + 644.199 = ?
- 798
- 542
- 682
- 745
- 762
Now to solve it by usual methods, it’d take us at least 5 minutes, if not more, but since it’s a timed MCQ, we need to solve it in around half a minute so that we don’t miss our paper.
To achieve this we apply approximation, let’s understand how.
(22.99 + 17.01) ÷ 1.998 × 3.997 – 41.998 + 644.199 = ?
Let’s round off the values with their closest approximate value,
{(23 + 17) / 2} 4 – 42 + 644 = ?
Now, since they’re whole numbers, it’s easier to solve them.
20 × 4 – 42 + 644 = ?
80 + 644 – 42 = 724 – 42 = 682.
Hence, the correct option is C. Although we won’t always get an accurate answer, we’ll have to make an educated guess to select the correct answer (which is the closest value to the answer) depending on how we manipulated the values.
To aid you a little, I’ll share a multiplication trick with you,
To multiply any 3 digit number with 999,
Say we multiply, 648 x 999.
- Subtract 1 from 648, 648 – 1 = 647.
- Now Subtract this number from 999, 999 – 647 = 352.
- Hence, the answer is, 648 x 999 = 647352. Easy right.
Conclusion
Solving quizzes will not only help with your school or university exams but are also very helpful for competitive exams such as SSC, SSB for armed forces, IBPS for banks, RRB for railways. Solving simple math problems (subtraction, multiplication, addition, division) also helps improve cognitive thinking. Cognitive ability tests have become a crucial part of many companies’ recruitment processes these days. The companies use tests such as the Wonderlic test, Revelian tests, and Predictive Index tests to measure a candidate’s suitability. With this, we hope that we can give you a little comprehension of the importance of taking quizzes. We hope you score your best grades. Happy learning.