I often find myself doing math in my head, and people are shocked and amazed that I can quickly come up with an answer without using a calculator. I should probably be the one who is shocked that so few people can do simple math in their heads. Then again, someone who does high level mathematics is not necessarily good at arithmetic. I suppose the logic comes easy for a programmer, but the trick to solving complex problems is to break them down into simpler operations. Multiplication Multiplication is really addition, multiple times. 10 x 3 = 10 + 10 + 10 = 30 One common problem is percentages. Percentage Percentage is really a division or multiplication problem, depending on how you look at it. What is 20 percent of 120? There are several ways to approach such problems, and I don't always use the same method. Method 1 Sometimes it is easier to break things up into 10's 100's or multiples of 2. 120 = 100 + 20 So work on each portion separately...
They say the only sure things in life are death and taxes.