Lazy summer days are ending and long schools hours are just about to begin. Are you ready to go back and dive right in? If you’re one of the few and proud people who aren’t ready to go back to school just yet, the Study Hut has a few tips that can ease you back into the academic process of thinking. You’ll be pondering quadratic equations and Shakespeare’s love trysts in no time.

1) Read a book that will be read in class during the upcoming school year: It’s a good idea to get a jump start on the reading list you will be working on during this next year. Familiarize yourself with the main ideas of the book and even check out the main themes in Cliff’s Notes in between the high and low tides at the beach. This will help reduce the amount of confusion, put you a step ahead of your classmates, and help you participate in class. It’s also a great confidence booster when you know what you’re talking about.

2) Review some of your old papers from last year. See if you understand the corrections your teacher was trying to communicate in evil red ink and if you understand them better than when you first received them. Chances are you’ve spent the summer maturing and leaving your silly ways of thinking behind. Challenge yourself to think about what corrections you would make to your papers or tests to improve your skills and compare them to the mistakes you’ve made. If you can recognize your mistakes, you can grow from them.

3) Play some brainteaser games to get you back into school mode. In between setting the TiVo for TMZ and The Hills, check out the Discovery Channel for quiz shows like “Cash Cab” or see if you really are smarter than a 5th grader on Fox. Take a break from your coolness and have a “Cash Cab” contest among your friends while you’re waiting for the next Star Trek marathon.

4) Last but not least, schedule an appointment at your closest Study Hut for a crash course refresher and book your spots with your favorite tutor. Hurry, they’re going fast!

Dear Rob,
As much fun of a place that the Study Hut is, it is not really the place I want to
be during the summer. Although I realize the importance of maintaining some sort of
intelligence over the summer break, thinking is not appealing at all. After focusing
almost all of my brain capacity on school work for 9 months, I think 3 months is a fair
break from all learning whatsoever.
Yes, it is true that many students are enrolled in summer school and therefore
you might say it is necessary to continue tutoring throughout at least the duration of
the course. However, the way that summer school is set up, we cover around 2 to 3
chapters a day and may have a test that day. In that case, I would be coming to
tutoring to go over something I have already been tested on making it a waste of forty
dollars. Also, the content, due to the lack of allotted time is very watered down causing
the difficulty, at least for me, rather easy. If I do not need to be at tutoring I am simply
not only my time, but yours as well.
Adding to the lack of need for tutoring, there is also the fact that I simply do not
want to be there. I wake up at 6:30 am to go to summer school for 5 ½ hours then
have to go to football for 3 hours. By the time I would be available to come to tutoring,
my brain is absolutely fried and I would not be able to concentrate at all, which would
once again be a complete waste of time. I want to use the few free hours I have to
just relax and take my mind off anything that is making summer not seem like summer,
especially school work.
Sincerely,
Donovan Ward

Mental Math

Nowadays, kids rely heavily upon their calculator for simple arithmetic. Most of us know our multiplication tables and how to multiple or divide some easier numbers. When the numbers start to get more complex thought, people get very frustrated and don’t even attempt to figure it out without a calculator. Here are some tips for doing mental math:

Say we wanted to multiply 12 by 23. Not too hard to do by hand or calculator, but when most are asked what the answer is without a calculator, their response is without thought, “I do not know”. You can always break these numbers down into problems that are much easier to do in your head:

First let’s look at something like 12×20. 20 is 2×10, so 12×20 is just 12x(2×10). Since 12×2 is 24 and 24×10 is 240, 12×20=240.

Now, let’s look at 12×23. The trick here is to rewrite one of the numbers as the sum of two numbers we can easily multiply, then use distributive property to make the one multiplication the sum of two easier multiplications. We can write 23 at 20+3. So, 12(23) = 12(20+3) which by the distributive property is 12(20) +12(3) = 240 +36 = 276. Since 12×20 and 12×3 are easy to do in the head, multiplying 12×23 can be just as easy if you can keep track of a few extra numbers.

Similarly 12 = 10+2, so (12)23= (10+2)23 = 10(23) +2(23) = 230+46 = 276. Either way, it isn’t as hard as most people think it is.

The next trick is to change the numbers we are multiplying. What is 15×18? Well, 18=2×9, so 15×18 = 15x(2×9) = (15×2)x9 = 30×9. Again, 30 = 3×10, so 30×9 is 10x(3×9) = 10×27 = 270. While this may seem like a lot of steps, once you get the hang of it, you can do this really quickly in your head.

These tricks work well for numbers under 100. When you get above 100, the tricks work the same, there are just more numbers to keep track of. Once you get the hang of keeping track of all the numbers, bigger numbers will become just as easy to multiply.

Try these in your head:

18×32 [18=20-2 so 18x32 = (20-2)x32 = 20(32)-2(32)= 640-64=576]

22×35 [22=2x11 so 22x35 = 11x2x35 = 11x70 = 770]