The most common struggles for math students each year is solving word problems. Students are often perplexed by word problems since the problem does not appear as a ready-to-solve mathematical equation. If you understand the concept, you can solve even the most challenging word problems. Although complexity varies, solving word problems requires a systematic approach that includes defining the problem, collecting relevant data, constructing the equation, solving, and double-checking the work.
Step 1: Read the problem
It seems so simple, but many students only read a small portion of the problem. Many students predict what the problem is asking and try to solve it before knowing all the facts. Some students find word problems daunting and give up before they even read the problem.
Step 2: What is the question? What does the problem want to know?
It’s challenging to solve a question if you don’t understand what is being asked. The question usually is found at the end of a problem. For example:
Three friends go to a restaurant and spend $45 on food. The tax on food is 12%. The friends leave a combined $7 tip. How much will each person pay?
The problem wants to know “how much will each person pay?”
Step 3: Look for key information.
What are the most important parts of information present in the problem?
Three friends go to a restaurant and spend $45 on food. The tax on food is 12%. The friends leave a combined $7 tip. How much will each person pay?
Highlighting or underlining these main pieces of information is very useful.
Step 4: Interpret the mathematical operations.
Look for hints on what each clue is asking as you analyze the various clues. For example, the word “each” implies that we will most likely need to divide. The term “combined” indicates that we are adding.
Step 5: Organize the clues
It is very important to write down and arrange the clues to the problem.
The clues in our example can be organized as follows:
($45 for food + 12% tax + $7 tip) ÷ 3 friends = cost for each friend
Step 6: Solve the problem
Once you organize the information, you see that you really only need to find the tax of 12% on the $45 meal. You then find that 12% of $45 is $5.40. After you find the amount of tax, you can now easily solve the problem.
($45 food) + (12% tax) + ($7 tip) = $45 + $5.40 + $7
In this problem, the cost of food, tax, and tip equals $57.40. After you divide $57.40 by 3 (number of friends), you get $19.133… which is about $19.13 after rounding.
Step 7: Check your answer.
Of course, the final step is to double-check your work to see if the answer matches the question asked. We can verify our work mathematically by performing the inverse of the operation we used.
As difficult as word problems can be for kids, following these easy seven steps can help them better understand how to solve word problems and see beyond the complicated words.
Oryx Learning has engaging math word problems on all important topics from Grade 1 to 8. Try them now for free and share with your peers and students.
