Get a real pen and paper, get a real physical book, sit and solve problems with pen and paper for hours every day for a few months. Then you will pass the exams.
Exactly. Every time I tutor someone in math, I tell them to use up at least a sheet of paper for every interesting question. When they do, their skills improve quickly. Saving paper is a false economy when it comes to math.
While I agree with you, and love aj7's post, I'm going to push back slightly on the pen and paper.
I used to do all my work (solutions to problems, notes) using pen and (plain! not lined) paper. However I realized a couple of years ago that becoming fluent in LaTeX was a better option for me. The reason is that, with the proof neatly typeset, and the ability to re-work and edit repeatedly without making a mess, I found that I think more precisely and systematically. I still do scratch work on paper, but writing up a clean copy as I go is very beneficial.
In addition to those reasons, the other hugely important one is that my notes are now in git, I can grep them, and they don't add to the pile of objects that must be dealt with when moving to a new home.
For best results you need to make a nice LaTeX set up. I use the Skim PDF reader so that it autorefreshes on file save, and set up a Makefile and make it so the PDF is recompiled on every file save. But whatever works for you, I'm sure there are easier setups.
hathawsh|7 years ago
Clubber|7 years ago
aj7|7 years ago
Myrmornis|7 years ago
I used to do all my work (solutions to problems, notes) using pen and (plain! not lined) paper. However I realized a couple of years ago that becoming fluent in LaTeX was a better option for me. The reason is that, with the proof neatly typeset, and the ability to re-work and edit repeatedly without making a mess, I found that I think more precisely and systematically. I still do scratch work on paper, but writing up a clean copy as I go is very beneficial.
In addition to those reasons, the other hugely important one is that my notes are now in git, I can grep them, and they don't add to the pile of objects that must be dealt with when moving to a new home.
For best results you need to make a nice LaTeX set up. I use the Skim PDF reader so that it autorefreshes on file save, and set up a Makefile and make it so the PDF is recompiled on every file save. But whatever works for you, I'm sure there are easier setups.