Math is not actually difficult. It is just a matter of practicing one's Mathematical skills. Constant practice and review of Math lessons are important for a child to develop his or her ability to answer not only basic Mathematical problems but also challenging problems.
In the Philippines, Metrobank Foundation Inc, Mathematics Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP) , and the Department of Education (DepEd) collaborated to organize Metrobank-MTAP-DepEd Math Challenge (MMC) every year.
I was able to teach several students who are MTAP contestants when I was still teaching at a school. Simply, I was an MTAP trainer before.
I have been having this underlying thought that every Filipino child can do challenging Math problems. How? By constant practice. One of the ways to do this is to give the student a set of questions targeting one skill. For example, in identifying the place value of a digit in a number, I would give ten different questions asking the student to just identify the place value of a digit. Repetition is a mother of skill, as the famous American businessman and authoer Anthony Robbins said.
There are so many ways to train students. I wish to include my way of doing it.
In this MTAP series, questions patterned after the common Math Challenge questions are posted.