A college student in Oregon, Cody Gotchall has interests in accounting and math. Cody Gotchall also enjoys crunching numbers and playing cribbage with his family.
Being good at mental math sounds more difficult than it is. Here are a few ways to improve mental math skills:
- Play more games. Games like chess require basic calculation skills. Effective chess players must look ahead several moves to figure out which possible next move is best. As you play more often, your ability to make calculations based on future moves improves.
- Simplify the numbers. When doing math in your head, simplify the numbers to make them more manageable. For example, adding 493 and 880 in your head is difficult. But if you simply round 493 to 500, add 880 to get 1,380, then subtract the 7 that was added when you rounded up, you’ll get the final answer of 1,373.
- Learn multiplication tricks. For example, when a number is multiplied by 5, the answer ends in either 0 or 5. Another trick: multiplying by 12 is the same as multiplying by 10, then adding the number multiplied by 2. For instance, 12 times 6 is the same as 10 times 6 plus 2 times 6.
