The quantitative reasoning section of the GRE is just math, mainly algebra and geometry and data analysis. Easy stuff, right? Well its not as easy as I thought it would be, since the last math class I had was statistics in my first semester of college, almost five years ago now. Yea, I remember that there IS such a thing as the quadratic formula and I remember that there IS an equation for the slope of a line, but NO, I couldn't have told you how to figure it out.
In my quest to re-learn the math I have forgotten over the years, I remembered a TED Talk I had seen on the Khan Academy. Number one, if you dont' know what TED Talks are, get on there and look around- incredibly innovative ideas on ALL kinds of topics, from clean water to education and wireless electricity to economics. Number two, if you don't know what Khan Academy is, get on there and look around!
Khan Academy is a learning site where the creator, Salman Khan, teaches through YouTube videos. For example, I needed to learn the quadratic formula. Khan academy is wonderful for learning math. In his videos, he takes you step by step through the problems. I am not sure how well this works when you are learning something for the first time, since I was relearning what I had learned in high school. However, some teachers are using sites like Khan Academy to improve classroom productivity. Students' "homework" becomes watching these videos and doing some practice problems online. When they get back to the classroom, the teacher spends their time and energy in helping the students with what would usually be their homework. Teachers basically become tutors. This saves classroom time, and frustration at home. I can't remember how many times my brother brought home homework that he didn't understand, and neither did my parents. Even for students whose teachers don't use Khan Academy, the site is free and open to all.
I'm in love with Khan Academy. If you create a login (you can connect using your Google account or Facebook account), you can earn points for every practice question you answer, and you can earn badges for getting a certain number of points, or for watching so many minutes of video. Anything you can turn in to a game or competition, I'm in. I love to earn points for learning! And I LOVE doing math. My bedroom floor was littered with scratch paper as I tore through the practice questions. The quantitative reasoning section is my favorite part of the GRE and hopefully I can get a score to prove as much.
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