March 2019 Updates

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Hello everyone – March is a quiet month for competitive mental calculation, but I do have a couple of updates!

Website Comments

Thank you for your inputs into the discussion here! Until recently your comments would take some time to appear because I had to manually approve everything. I’ve recently changed the settings so that your comments on all posts should now be published immediately.

Training Real-World Mental Math

Many of you are already knowledgeable – or perhaps world experts! – in advanced mental calculation such as Vedic Mathematics, modular arithmetic, and calendar date calculations.

However, many of these techniques are not the most helpful in the real world, for several reasons:

  • They require us to see the question written down (e.g. “123 x 456” in order to do cross-multiplication)
  • Sometimes they even require us to see the partial answer written down (e.g. square root algorithm)
  • They demand perfect accuracy and are slower than good-quality estimation techniques
  • Some produce the answer starting at the “small” end (e.g. in 123 x 456 most of us calculate the 3×6=(1)8 first), and when speaking an answer we would prefer to start from the “big” end (e.g. 123 x 456 = 5_,___)

To solve these, I’ve prepared my own methods, such as:

  • The Rescaling Method for Multiplication
  • The Rescaling Method for Division
  • 2-Step Methods for Currency Conversions and converting between Metric and Imperial Units

I’m excited to announce that after 2 months, my new online course teaching everyone at all levels is finally ready! (It was much more work than I was expecting…)

You’ll be able to learn the new methods described above, but I’ll also describe how to use spaced repetition for learning mathematical facts (and vocabulary for languages) in more detail than I explained in December’s article here on this website – complete with some training resources.

Although I provide information on this website for free, this online course is a premium product available for €44.99 (I do Mental Calculation for fun but also I do need to earn a living!) but to celebrate its launch (and because if you’re reading this you’ll probably learn the material quickly) I’m offering readers of this website over 75% off.

To preview some of the course for free – use this link direct to the online course. This will automatically qualify you for the discount coupon MATH_SECRET which will give you the biggest savings on this course.

Many of you will also have friends and colleagues who you know would benefit from seeing Mental Mathematics from a new perspective, or learning shortcuts for everyday tasks for mental calculation. If so, you’re welcome to invite them to use the same discount coupon, I would be thankful for your support, and they can also benefit from over 75% off from this unique resource.

Upcoming Competitions

[Note: the European Championship and Junior World Championship are entirely unrelated events]

 

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