What You May Have Forgotten Between 5th Grade and Now: Part 1

In Part 1 of our series on ‘items you may have forgotten between 5th grade and college’ we present some simple, but necessary math skills. For some people it’s been a while since they performed what can be considered basic math. Either the  job you have doesn’t demand it, or with all the technology made available to us it seems a waste of time to try working out the problem by ourselves.

Whichever the case, below are a few examples of math skills you may have learned back in grade school. We’re digging them up for you to revisit, just in case you need them during your studies online.

Math Skills:

1. What are the different types of numbers? For some of you who don’t remember what a whole number or integer is, here’s your refresher: Natural numbers are the counting numbers, whole numbers you add a zero to the natural numbers, integers have negative numbers mixed in. There are also rational numbers (integers with the addition of fractions), and irrationals (number’s that can’t be represented as fractions like pi and some square roots.) For a larger list of these numbers >
2. What’s the area of a shape? For those working in physics or geometry you may need to revisit the volume, area and circumference of a shape. Even when you don’t use these formulas every day, it’s still good to keep in mind. Area and surface formulas >
3. What is the order of operations? An easy way to remember this is through the acronym PEMDAS; parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. The order will help you in getting the correct answer when you work on complex equations.
4. How many feet are in a mile? Even if you don’t need to know this for a class it’s still something good to keep in mind…in case you need it down the road. There are 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 1,760 yards in a mile, and 5,280 feet to a mile.
5. What is the mean, medium, mode and range? These simple calculations can be used for balancing your checkbook, bank account, or simple problems for school. Just remember, the mean is the average of a group of numbers, the median is the middle value in a list of numbers put in numerical order, mode is the most commonly occuring number and the range is the difference between the largest and smallest values on the list.