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Simple Tips for Better Maths Results!

Ai Ling Ong

Top 7 Commonly Made Mistakes in Logarithm

How many of you would like to learn Math faster?
And how many of you would like to score more marks for Math?

Do you know that one of the fastest and effective techniques to grasp something fast would be to learn the mistakes that many others are commonly making and thus avoid them at all cost!

I am going to share with you the Top 7 Commonly Made Mistakes in Logarithm.

Please note all these are mistakes so do not follow instead you must be aware of them and constantly remind yourself not to fall into the same trap.

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Logarithm Equation Question 1

I met a student and she passed me this paper with this Lg question on it, asking me on the solution for solving this equation :\lg(x-2)=(lg3)^2

Coincidentally, I was asking a few O Level students of mine on which are the "Killer A-Maths Topics" for them. Logarithm, Indices, Surds is one of the common topic which is ranked high on their list.

Now back to the question.

PS:lg = log_{10}

Notice that right hand side of the equal sign is something you can compute using the calculator hence,

\lg(x-2)=(lg3)^2
(x-2)= 10^{(lg3)^2}

Use your calculator to find out the value of 10^{(lg3)^2} and the value is 1.69 ( round off to 3 significant figure) so the answer for this question is

x = 1.69 + 2<br> =3.69<br>

I will be coming out with a series of posts on Logarithms since it is a "hot" topic for students :-) Subscribe to my feeds to be updated of this post.

E-Maths Note: Quadratic Equations & Graphs Series Revisit

I have discussed about Quadratic Equations and Graphs previously in Features of Quadratic Equations and Graphs , Different representations of quadratic equations and their significance

This is really an important topic for students taking E-Math (elementary math) , more so for A-Math (additional math) as well.

Be sure that you know the basic of recognizing if a given equation is quadratic, how the quadratic equation looks like, the 5 main features of a quadratic graph, the different methods to solve a quadratic equation.

For students taking A-Math, you would definitely need to know more about the discriminant, sum or product of roots.

I would be elaborating more on methods to solve a quadratic equation and tips on discriminant so be sure you follow the blog by subscribing to the feed here.

Tips on Operations of Standard Forms

Operations of Standard Forms refer to + -×÷

+ -
Golden Rule #1: Change everything to the bigger powerGolden Rule #2: Factorise

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×÷

Golden Rule #1: Group numbers together, Group bases together
Golden Rule #2: Apply Power Laws

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