Saturday, April 02, 2005

Preemptive Thought Execution

One great way to improve the speed at which one solves problems especially on standardized tests is to perform preemptive thought execution. Preemptive thought execution is presolving basic parts of the problem in question, you will first have to "predict" what type of calculations may be needed and perform them before we start the problem.

Our prediction should be guided by the content of the problem, we should quickly think back to similar problems and presolve portions of it. Though some of our "presolutions" may not be needed it will greatly increase the speed at which the problem is solved.

Preemptive thought execution was dervied from the preemptive code execution technique used in Intel CPU's.

John G.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi John. Firstly I'd like to say I find your blog very interesting. Now here's my method on solving problems.

1. Read the problem describtion in great depth.
2. Filter the rubbish - write down what we know, and what we need to find in mathematical terms.
3. Make a plan on solving the problem (in head), identify what section of math is needed to solve it (i.e trigonometria or geometria). Search for asociasions between problem describtion and theories / formulas that you know (from that section of math).
4. Apply the plan - solve the problem.

I know this may look somewhat simplistic, I've just finished 3rd grade in highschool (one year left), but I believe it's good for solving problems at highschool level math, where you don't have to invent new stuff, just apply what you know. I'm preparing for national math exam next year (it's going to be pretty hard, math is at kind of high level here in Lithuania.) and found your blog. Love it, keep up the good work, and keep giving these advices :)

June 17, 2005 at 9:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have found that if you break down a word problem into individual steps (boolean algebra) they become much easier to solve.

Anyone who has ever written a computer program in any language such as basic, C, or fortran, should be very familiar with this approach.

Solving the individual steps of the math problem become much easier when this is done.

for a detailed example please visit

"http://www.nyseattle.com/pages/5/">
www.nyseattle.com


-Jason Borenstein
Mathematician and gravitational physics
and Juels Borh, web page disigner

August 9, 2005 at 6:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am sorry, my link is incorrect.
please try

www.nyseattle.com

-Jason Borenstein
-Juels Borh

August 9, 2005 at 6:44 AM  

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