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There are a number of students who don’t find solving math problems easy, but there is a simple strategy that might make things clearer and so give you a little more confidence when next tackling something in your math class.

The RQWQCQ strategy is not only easy to remember, but also easy to apply.

Try it and see if it works for you.

Read the Problem                                                          The first thing to do is read the problem question through so that you understand what it is that’s required.

Failure to do this puts you at a disadvantage because the chances are that you’ll have either the wrong answer or the right answer in the wrong format. Read the problem carefully and you’ll at least have the right format.

Q is for Question 
Identify what the question is in the problem. Sometimes this could be clearly given, but occasionally you’ll need to find it within the words outlining the problem.

W is for Write 
Make a note of the facts required. A useful tip here is to put a line through any irrelevant facts within the problem so that you can see what’s left that’s important. Remember however that sometimes you’ll only be given relevant facts so this is where reading comes important so you can distinguish what’s essential to the solution of the problem and what’s not.

Q is for Question
This time the question is to identify what calculations or computations do I need to do in order to answer the question correctly

C is for Compute
Write up the problem and make the computations. Check your calculations for errors and make any corrections that are needed. Once you’ve done this, identify your final answer by circling or underlining it.

Q is for Question
The final question is to ask if the answer seems a feasible solution to the problem. If you find that it’s not because it doesn’t seem to relate to the facts given in the problem, then you need to go back to step 1 of the RQWQCQ to see if you get a different answer. Should you find that because of your answer to the final question you have to return to step 1, completely start again using none of the computations that you used to arrive at the first answer. Do this until you are either convinced that however odd it seems it is right, or you arrive at an answer that is more in line with the problem given.

By using this RQWQCQ strategy, together with the formulas you have been taught, you’ll find that you can logically solve any problem given to you in your math class.

When you’re in class and you’re asked to write an essay, or even a normal test paper, the first thing you must do is to read the question carefully.

Each question will have a clue, direction words, as to the kind of response you need to give in order to answer the question correctly – and even if you manage to get the answer right without having it in the right format, you won’t get as high a grade as you could have, simply because you didn’t take the time to read the question properly before you started.

The most common words you are likely to encounter on an essay or test paper are:

Compare – take a look at something against something else (the paper will tell you what you’re comparing, apples and oranges for example) and talk about how they are different, and how they are alike. You compare one against another.

Contrast – in this situation, you only look at how the items are different and what their contrasts are.

Describe – here you need to go into great detail about whatever you’re asked to describe. Break it down into its component parts, and give as much information for each part as you can.

Explain – write about something in a way that’s easy to understand, as if you were telling someone else how to do something.

Define – very similar to “explain” except you should keep it as much to the point as possible.

Diagram – this isn’t writing; this is illustrating your point without sentences. You can use words to label your diagram but your answer should be clear from looking at the illustration without needing a paragraph to explain it.

Justify – give reasons that support an issue or statement.

List – it’s what it says, it’s a list – not an essay, not flowing on paragraphs, just a list.

Outline – this is just the salient points of something set out in a well organized format.

Summarize – take what you know about the subject and write about it in a concise manner. It should contain as much relevant important information as possible, but should still be relatively short.

Trace – this is like a written time-line.Take the subject area back as far as you can, and then write about it up until the event or present day (depending on the topic). Some of the above words are very similar but they have subtle differences so be sure to learn exactly what each one means. Identifying the right word in your next essay or test could make the difference between an excellent, or average, grade!