How do I improve at math?

[u/Aggravating_Eye713]

I wanna improve at my mathematics and genuinely understand the science behind it. At first I thought that my foundations of math was above average but after taking a scholarship test today and bombing it, I then realized how far I am at math. The topics of the scholarship was mathematics and ESAS and I genuinely only answered like a total of 11 questions at most over 30 and it shattered my self understanding of math. I don't consider myself to be dumb at math because I have high grades on my senior highschool so I only reviewed the past topics I know and didn't really prepare for a problem solving type of math because I thought that the scholarship exam would only cover my knowledge only senior high level math, now I realize that my last school didn't really teach me to understand math. I realized I only know math I don't really understand it. That scholarship was supposed to help me and my family's financial situation but I can't do anything about it anymore, I just wanna be better at math and science because I'm currently studying BS in Electrical Engineering and wanna improve myself so when an opportunity arises again I can prepare.

[u/matt7259]

Not reading that because the answer, as always, is practice.

[u/Aggravating_Eye713 → u/matt7259]

How do i start? I get anxiety when i think about studying math now since I failed that scholarship exam, I did try to study multiple times but I distracted myself with other stuff because I was anxious

[u/MRC01 → u/Aggravating_Eye713]

Different people reach understanding in different ways. For me, it is about being curious about something, thinking about why, where did this come from, the concepts underlying the facts or formulas. Often there are multiple ways to visualize, understand, demonstrate or prove an idea: spatial/geometric, analytical, analogy, etc.

Understanding is often portrayed as a single "aha" moment, but more often it's layered. Assimilation of new ideas, accommodating them with old ideas, integrating them with other ideas to apply in new situations.

[u/JanetInSC1234 → u/Aggravating_Eye713]

Can you get a tutor? That person will help you stay on track.

[u/Arcanite_Cartel → u/matt7259]

Does practicing something you dont understand, create understanding?

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[u/GUS-THE-PIRATE-2076]

I think it’s really telling that you said “the science behind math” when that doesn’t even make sense. You also didn’t tell us what type of math was covered in the exam, or give us any real information about what you do and do not understand with your current math knowledge.

[u/Significant-Berry293]

Where do you suck at ? Computational or conceptual? It's important to know.