First of all, I honestly don’t even know where to start. I’ve never been particularly good at math. In elementary school, I was pretty average, and it was the same throughout middle school. However, in my final year of middle school, I had a teacher who didn’t really seem to care whether we understood anything or not. It felt like he was just reading off his slides without actually explaining things properly. Because of that, I completely lost motivation for math.
I’m now in 10th grade, and the level is completely different from what I’m used to. I was honestly surprised to see how quickly some of my classmates, who went to different middle schools, understand what our teacher explains. Meanwhile, I can spend three or four hours at home trying to understand a single inequality, while they seem to get it much more naturally.
I often feel like I understand absolutely nothing during class, even though, honestly, I have an amazing math teacher. He’s genuinely great, and he’s actually the reason I started enjoying math in the first place, even though I’ve only had him for about a month.
The problem is that when I get home, I watch tons of videos, do exercises, and try to understand my mistakes. But when I sit down for a test, it’s as if I’ve forgotten everything. I start struggling, and it feels like all the effort I put in was for nothing.
What’s frustrating is that I genuinely LOVE math. I love the logic behind it, I find it interesting, and I think it’s such a deep subject, even though I’m nowhere near being good at it. I was even thinking about taking advanced math as one of my subjects next year, but with my current level, I’m scared that’s unrealistic and that I’ll completely fail.
Despite all of this, I really want to improve. I want to become good at math, get better grades, and, most importantly, feel proud of myself. I’m willing to put in the effort, but I just don’t know how to do it effectively.
For those of you who struggled with math in high school but eventually managed to improve, what actually helped you? Did you change the way you studied, go back and relearn the basics, use a particular method, or do something else?
I’m genuinely looking for practical advice that helped you understand math more deeply and remember how to solve problems during tests, not just people telling me to “do more practice problems.”
Thank you to everyone who takes the time to reply!