Honors Geometry help!!! (no I am not fishing for answers either)?

Question

Okay. I am in Honors Geometry and we are doing proofs. I will be skewed if these don't come to me. I get all the postulates and theorems, but I don't know how to use them towards proving a given. Does any one have any tricks or ways that make proofs easy for you??

Any thing would help, I will try it all. I am striving to get good grades, and usually everything comes to me. These just don't. Thanks...

Answer 1

Pay attention in class when the teacher does a proof. Take great notes on what he writes on the board douring a proof.  When you go home, reread your notes. If something in it doesn't make sense, ask your teacher the next day.

Do the same with the textbook. Read the chapter - don't just rush to the homework. If you don't understand a proof, ask the teacher.

Answer 2

Doing proofs is different from just solving problems.

In my opinion, the teaching of proofs (unless it has changed dramatically) is all wrong.

The present the proof in minimal form all nicely worked out.

But that's not how they're found at all.

You try this ...  it doesn't work. So you try something else,

if that doesn't work either, you try a third thing.

Sometimes you're doing something completely unrelated

and you just notice something.  Then you say "What if this

condition is true ?" Oh, then this follows and this and this

and then you go back and state your conclusion followed

by this magnificent proof.

That's all well and good, but doesn't really help you.

It's hard to give general advice.

Sometimes you just have to rely on a bag of tricks,

or work backwards, or ask yourself, "What do I know that

I can bring to bear to this problem ?"

Let's say the proof is about triangles.

So you say, which sides and angles are given ?

Is there a special relationship among them ?

What do I know about similar cases ?

If I draw this or that auxiliary line, does it then look

like the parts are things I know how to work with ?

Post some examples (maybe of things proven already

in class or in your book, rather than your assignments)

and then someone can take you through the process

step by step.

If you do that, drop me a note with a link to the question here,

many questions are easily missed.

Keep up the good attitude, and one day it *will* click

and you'll like doing proofs, because they solve a whole

class of problems, not just one instance.