Mental Math

Will you pay more for a $19.99 shirt with a 20% discount or a $24.99 shirt with a 30% discount? Can you quickly calculate how many eggs you’ll need to make 100 pancakes if your recipe says that 2 eggs make 20 pancakes? Can you work out how much a $30-per-month gym membership will cost over 24 months without writing anything down or using a calculator? Most everyday math is done in your head, which is why improving your mental-math skills is always useful. If you grew up hating math, you may simply have been taught with the wrong approach. Math can help you calculate discounts on the fly, multiply large numbers, and solve everyday quantity problems quickly. In this book, you’ll find practical strategies to improve your math skills, make calculations faster, and solve everyday math problems more easily. This is not a boring book of math theory: it offers helpful, to-the-point techniques that simplify everyday calculations. Here are some practical tricks you’ll learn: how to quickly multiply any number by 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10, practical strategies for solving everyday math problems, how to use the Plugging In Numbers (PIN) technique without a calculator, how to calculate discounts on the fly, tips for adding and subtracting fractions faster, how to determine mean, median, and standard deviation, and how to estimate mortgages and down payments mentally.