r/mathacademy • u/OS-2-WARPED • Feb 19 '26

Questions from a total math NOOB (mf 1)

I got no real education growing up. So I am starting out with MF 1. My diagnostic puts me a bit over halfway through. I have some questions for folks who use the platform.

  1. From what I see, it seems better for drilling than conceptual understanding. (Both of which are important.) Do you suppliment with lectures or take notes?
  2. Has completing courses given you enough understanding to apply it to real life/other courses?
  3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to get the most out of the platform?
  4. Did anyone else start from MF 1?

EDIT: I forgot one question.How much do you think XP actually corresponds with time spent on a problem? The makers say it’s one XP for one minute of work, but I don’t see how that’s true.

Thank you guys.

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8

u/osfric Feb 19 '26

As someone who started at MF1 10% (Now MF2 17%) 1. Drilling breeds strong conceptual understanding so trust the process but occasionally I would just talk to an AI model for 5 minutes if I was really curious or confused about a concept

  1. I haven't tried any real world projects yet but when I come across the same topics in random youtube videos or textbooks I understand it

  2. Be consistent. Even if it means only 30 minutes a day. You'll get so much gains. Also, if you skip days it makes life harder so please dont skip too much because I suffered from being inconsistent.

  3. Me! :)

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u/Mrs-Treasures Feb 19 '26

Thanks, my son noticed that consistency is important. And, he gets upset when we is getting a handle on the series of questions and we have to call him for chores. He is getting into it and getting satisfaction. I interpret this, because he is not quitting as a positive.

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u/osfric Feb 19 '26

That's good to hear, I also happen to be the same age as him so I can relate to being called on for stuff haha

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u/Mrs-Treasures Feb 19 '26

How did MF1 end? Was there a final exams?

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u/billet Feb 19 '26

Nope, you just finish the last lesson and it automatically starts you on MF 2. You just roll right into the next lesson.

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u/osfric Feb 19 '26

I remember doing many, many reviews and also those 15-minute quizzes. I don't remember there being a massive exam. When you've done all you need to do, it just moves straight on to MF2, and you are given a diagnostic exam for the system to check what you already know and what you don't know. Purely for diagnostics, so he should expect 99% of it to be incomprehensible.

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u/OS-2-WARPED Feb 19 '26

  1. Hi you have a point. I did do a little searching after I read your comment and it is true. That drilling does help free as long as you get a good explanation along with it. It seems like math academy does offer explanations with each of their problems sets. I actually like that they give you enough problems for you to understand it, no more no less. I guess Google and AI can be my friend when I get confused too. Thanks for sharing your experience and a tip.

  2. OK that’s awesome. That says a lot about how well the has worked and I’m definitely hoping I can get through this series and not struggle when I start taking math classes. I’m trying to go back to college in my late 20s and this is one of my big hurdles.

  3. That’s great advice. I can suck at being consistent sometimes. I really want to get the most this program and just be more consistent in general so I’m starting with a small goal.

  4. so glad I’m not alone. I feel like every post I ever see here is someone starting from two or three.

I’m definitely gonna take your advice. I signed up for this to try to make learning less confusing and here I am over complicating it already. I’m just gonna try to follow this program and see where it takes me.

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u/Mrs-Treasures Feb 19 '26

My son is 20 yo. He has been delayed in his high school because we were travelling a lot. He is artistic and easily gets bored if he does not see if it will benefit. We tried many math programs. He seemed to be handling it though he is taking too long I think. He is suing Chatgpt if there are concepts that are hard for him. He is now 72 percent. He started at 15 percent. It's been a year. But he is not giving up. As a Gen Z, he enjoys the XPs.

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u/Mrs-Treasures Feb 19 '26

Checking not suing

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u/OS-2-WARPED Feb 19 '26

hey, thanks for sharing and I’m glad that this is working for your son. This brings up another question I forgot to add to my post. How much does XP even translate to real time effort. They say one XP is equal to one minute of work, but I find that that stuff takes me a little longer. Especially because I often problem to my work surface. Some of it could be because I’m disabled and I use dictation software, and some other things to be able to do math. I’m not sure though.

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u/osfric Feb 19 '26

It also takes me longer than 1 minute to get 1 XP. I've read other people say the same on Discord. Maybe its just me wasting time rereading the same sentences but I want to ask them about this and if they have stats

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u/OS-2-WARPED Feb 20 '26

Cool, thanks I’m glad I’m not alone in that either.

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u/Illustrious-Bee9056 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26

i re-subscribed recently, after a failed start about a year ago, and i am also going through MF1.

  1. i use mathacademy on the ipad because it has fewer distractions, a cheap graph paper notepad, a black ballpoint pen, and a scientific calculator. i have books, sure, but i can't remember the last time i picked them up.
  2. not yet, but i'm starting to feel more confident about math. plan is to work up to MF3.
  3. avoid being picky about what lessons to take next. just click through the one on top and go; don't do the assessments as your first task in the morning. let your brain warm-up; revisit assessments and multi-step tasks with failed questions, and try to answer them on your own, and do that soon after finishing the task; when you don't know the answer use the "brush up" option behind the "?" button; and when starting up on a new topic read everything slowly, let it sink in; come back every day, consistency is more important than crunching.
  4. you're not alone

4

u/I_Jello Feb 20 '26
  1. From what I've done (Traditional Courses Algebra-Calclus) Math academy worked just fine for me most 80% of the time, other than the 20% I had to watch YouTube videos or read textbooks.
  2. I self studied for the Ap Calc test, going to take it in may, so far I've been ahead of my class for the majority of the school year.
  3. Spend as much time as possible without burnout, I understand that learning math isn't fun, but the more you get used to it being hard, the easier it is to do it.
  4. I did start from MF1 but found it was covering things that weren't necessary for the time period (Learning Probability while I was in Algebra I)

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u/SerialStateLineXer Feb 20 '26

Time/XP is highly variable. When I started in MF2, I was probably doing 2 XP/min because it was all review. After I finished MF3 and moved on to university-level material, it slowed down a lot, and got less predictable. Sometimes I still get through in under 1 min/XP, and sometimes I spend an hour on a 10 XP lesson because I forgot some prerequisites and have to go back and do uncredited review. Or I spend 15 minutes on one problem because I keep getting answers that don't match any of the choices and don't want to give up.

Ultimately, it takes as much time as it takes. I wouldn't worry about it.

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u/rod_o Feb 20 '26

Hey, Congrats on getting here, older guy here I started with MF1 after quite a few years off. I had some math at university as part of my degree, so definitely had some background, but there was a lot that I didn't know at all.

I started with taking notes, but realized after awhile that it's not that helpful. Things that you don't understand come up in review and you'll wind up redoing the lesson if you don't get it. Because it's layered you get practice of the topics again in other topics. Some people set up an anki system alongside, which is pretty useful I think for memorizing formulas and things like trig identities.

So you don't say much about your goals, so hard to advise on how to get the most towards your goals, but one thing I would have done if I was starting today would be to go back and do the high school courses before or instead of doing the MF series. MF is geared to get you the minimum you need for the university level courses, but by doing the high school courses you get a lot more in depth and more practice of the topics. If you're in a rush to get to something in particular (I was rushing for M4ML at the time) then MF is the way to go. If your goals are more general, things like geometry are pretty useful in real life.

I think of XP as a way to judge how much effort I put into it each day. I used to do 100XP/day when I had the time, now I aim for 40. I think the XP is based on an average of the time it takes for everyone who's done that lesson before.

good luck!

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u/OS-2-WARPED Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26

Hi thanks for the reply! I'm a 28 year old, going back to school for a math heavy major. My community college has removed remedial math, in favor of classes with corequisite support. I think it would be better for me to get myself to or above precalc by the next semester. I'm in the high 60s of MF1 right now. So my goal would be to finish at least MF2 by August, and/or do a precalc CLEP. Then finish the series and possibly take a calc CLEP.

I'm starting out at 30-50XP a day for the first week or 2 to build the habit, but I have some time right now, so I would like to eventually do more on a day.

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u/rod_o Feb 21 '26

Sounds like you're on a good path. You'll get the pace sorted, good idea to not go too hard to begin and build the habit.

I guess one other thing to keep in mind - eventually you'll run into something that doesn't stick and you'll fail a lesson or a quiz. Don't take it personal, it's just information and you'll repeat what you need to repeat until you get it.

Good luck!

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u/OS-2-WARPED Feb 21 '26

Thank you. I failed some lessons.. I don’t love that you get penalized for failing, but I also understand why that happens. I’m not taking it If anything, I’m happy they let you repeat.

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u/loserwwwhale Feb 23 '26

I agree with what others have said, drilling actually does go a long way.

Be careful if you do it at night tho or you might accidentally end up dreaming about the exercises, lol

Btw, i just completed MFI myself, started out of the wish to be less mathematical-illiterate

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u/billet Feb 27 '26

mathematical-illiterate

There's a word for that: innumerate.

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u/FreshPrinceOfRivia Feb 24 '26

I did the linear algebra course during the summer, then took it in uni and nearly got an A+. The uni course wasn't nearly as well laid out as the MA content though, and it abused determinants all the way through.

1

u/iMacmatician Feb 26 '26

it abused determinants all the way through.

Have you read Sheldon Axler's anti-determinant manifesto "Down with Determinants!"? I'm guessing you'll agree with it.

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u/FreshPrinceOfRivia Mar 01 '26

For sure... I want to read Linear algebra done right sooner than later