Planning

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If you don't understand the problem, creating a solution can be nearly impossible.

Word problems can be especially tricky, especially when they don't have accurate diagrams attached.

If you see a word problem that has to do with 2D or 3D shapes, one of the first things you should do is to draw a diagram using the information given.  That's why it's important to pay attention when Mr. V explains how to draw the shapes, especially 3D ones.  That's coming up in a video for next week.  Also watch out when a word problem starts slinging around a variable, as they might not always want to know what the variable stands for.  All of this has to do with understanding the problem.



Once you've done that, you can make a plan of what to do about it.  Perhaps your plan might include drawing the shape being described, or if the shape is on it's side, redrawing it so that it is on the base.  Or finding what the variable stands for so that you can test each answer choice.



Then you need to be extra careful about working your plan.  If your drawing is missing some information, you might need to adjust it.  Or if you aren't careful in finding the variable, your tests might say all answer choices were wrong.



In those cases, the reasonableness (meaning is it likely that the answer you got is the correct one) comes into question.  So you may need to look at the answer choices to see if you're close or way off.  Again, be careful about this, as there may be one close to yours intentionally placed there by the test giver.


At any rate, knowing what plans to use is a skill that can be practiced, and I intend for us to do that.



So, now that you've read the post, either put in your journal or take a sheet of paper and let me know where you think you might run into trouble when trying to solve word problems.