Poll: the sum(7,9)

[Ken Ray]

On 3/15/05 11:19 AM, "Dan Shafer" <revdan at danshafer.com> wrote:

> I guess I'm one of those odd ducks who just memorized all this crap in
> school. It never occurs to me to DO anything to solve this kind of math
> problem. The answer just appears in my mind.

I think I'm a mixture of what most people have posted so far... for single
digit numbers, the answer just "pops" in because I've memorized it. For
larger numbers, I apply certain memorized rules if I can (like "any number
multiplied by 1 is itself", or "any number multiplied by 10 just gets a 0
added to the end of it", etc.) or I break it down into pieces, usually at a
common "5" or "10" point.

For example, to do 45 * 32 in my head, I'll end up doing (45*30) + (45*2).
To add 857 and 249, I'll end up doing (850+250) + (7-1).


Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Web site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com