Help me find a typing-software styled memorization quiz for times tables

May 13, 2011 11:06 AM

I am looking for a quiz program that will interactively help me practice my times tables, rehearsing the answers I get wrong a lot and waiting until I make progress before adding new questions to learn.

I'm taking the CBEST which includes long division, which I'm fine at but worried about running out of time on since I never memorized my multiplication tables and no calculators are allowed!

I'm remembering Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, which started with A S D F until I got it and then slowly introduced more letters, always making me practice the ones I got wrong a lot until I had it nailed. I need something like that.

Basically, I need a program that has an internal understanding of what questions you have memorized, so that it knows when to move on, while still maintaining the memorized ones with occasional reminders.

Are there any quiz platforms that allow you to enter your own questions? This sort of rehearsal/practice method seems really useful for a lot of situations and I could really use it for every time I ever need to study (e.g. vocab, verb conjugation, etc!)

posted by brenton to education (6 answers total)

Have you looked into a Spaced Repetition System like Anki? You can put in the questions and answers that you need to know, and you can set the number of new questions you want per day, and it will automatically adjust the time before you have to see the question again based on whether you judge the answer to be easy or hard. And it's extremely useful for learning things like foreign language vocabulary.
posted by Jeanne at 11:17 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anki looks awesome. It isn't quite what I'm looking for because it doesn't actually make you answer and because it doesn't review cards once you have learned them, but if I work the system a little I think it might be a helpful tool. Not quite as automatic as I'd hope, but definitely a useful tool to keep on my belt.
posted by brenton at 12:25 PM on May 13, 2011

Look for children's software that covers multiplication. I've seen kids using software for math facts that does exactly what you describe--IIRC, they could select which type of facts they would be asked (2s, 8s, etc.), and then I think there were also "levels" that would cover several different types (1s through 4s).
posted by epj at 2:04 PM on May 13, 2011

Take a look at the Khan Academy, as well. They have multiplication exercises of varying difficulty (the 11s and 12s are a separate exercise, for example). It's not exactly what you're looking for, but I really like them as a teaching tool. It'd also be good for the long division practice (all the way up to calculus and beyond!)
posted by cgg at 2:23 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you set up your cards correctly, which is not hard, Anki does make you answer (type in the blank) and it does review cards once you've learned them--just less frequently than cards you mark as difficult. You can also review early. Anki really does exactly what you're looking for.
posted by anaelith at 6:31 PM on May 13, 2011

I passed the test by drawing out a times-table on the provided paper and filling it in during the testing time, lol!

I think I'm going to try to write a javascript program to do what I had in mind, since I wasn't able to find any programs that did exactly what I wanted.
posted by brenton at 8:21 AM on June 17, 2011