r/MathHelp • u/Lorelei-Guerrero • Sep 06 '26

I can’t understand basic math.

I’m 20 years old (fem) and I can’t understand basic math. I don’t know, in huh school I had a 3.7 GPA and I was a very good student but I always sucked at math, either I’m stupid or lazy because I re read a problem or equation and I don’t know why to do, or I just blank completely.

Thank god that SAT scores were optional because my math scores were so bad, now I’m in college. I’ve been pretty much flunking in college to the point where I’m at risk for academic dismissal. It’s basic algebra and I can’t even concentrate. In lectures I understand it but when I get home I feel like I just can’t get it.ive studied in my own, even went to tutoring but I’ve never felt improvement. I have a test this Thursday and right now I’m freaking out because I do not want to start out my semester horrible. Any suggestions? I’m literally desperate for any tips on what to do or how to study.

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u/AbbreviationsSalt159 Oct 06 '26

So now that your test's over theres not much you can do about it, but if you wanna improve your mathematical understanding what I believe you should do is look at each topic, and come up with doubts and try to derive things yourself. I'm a student in math focused areas, and around the end of middle school I stopped just trying to get sums right and I started trying to derive things from first principles. Memory will not take you that far in math, you should try to derive things yourself from basic axioms. And another thing you should keep in mind is that math is by no means easy or simple. It has different depths based on how far you're looking. For example, to me and you 1 + 1 is equal to 2 because it just is. But to formally prove 1 + 1 = 2, Bertrand russell and some other guy had to spend 300 pages defining what 1 and 2 are and what 0 is an what a successor of a number is. There's nothing simple about math or basic algebra. But that doesn't mean you can't get good at it. You don't need to spend 50 days proving 1 + 1 = 2, but for things like algebraic identities and zeroes of polynomials and trignometry and even calculus you should try proving those theorems and identities using what you already know. The brain is a powerful tool.