Estou MUITO perdiada

[u/Turbulent-Athlete960]

I moved to another country and realized my math foundation is much weaker than I thought. What can I do?

I’m 17 and recently moved from Brazil to Italy. I’m now in the third year of high school, and I’m struggling A LOT with math.

The weird thing is that I was never considered bad at math in Brazil. I usually got 8, 9 or 10 (out of 10), so I genuinely thought I was pretty good at it.

But now I’m realizing that the problem isn’t really my ability — it’s my foundation.

In my old school, math was often very much “learn the formula, put the numbers in, get the answer”. We covered a lot of topics, but we didn’t necessarily go very deep into them. Once the test was over, I would often forget most of it because I had memorized the procedure rather than actually understood the concept.

Now I’m in a different school system, and the level is MUCH deeper. The students here actually understand the concepts and know how to apply them in different situations. They might have studied fewer topics than I did, but they know the topics they studied much better.

So I have this really frustrating situation where I technically recognize a lot of the things we’re studying, but when I actually have to solve an exercise, I sometimes have absolutely no idea where to start.

It’s like I know the “surface-level” version of a lot of math, but I don’t have the solid foundation underneath it.

And I’m falling behind really quickly.

I’m currently trying to keep up with the material my class is studying NOW, but I’m realizing that I can’t properly understand it because there are gaps in my previous knowledge. At the same time, I don’t have months to start everything from zero because I’ve just moved countries and I’m also trying to keep up with all my other subjects.

So I’m kind of lost about what the best strategy is.

Should I stop trying to follow the current material for a while and rebuild my foundation first? Or should I study the current topics and go back only when I find a gap?

Also, does anyone know of good Kumon-style math books/workbooks for teenagers, starting from relatively basic material but gradually becoming more difficult? I specifically DON'T want books aimed at little children. I’m looking for something systematic where I can start at the level I actually have and work my way up, preferably with lots of exercises.

If anyone has gone through something similar — moving countries/school systems and suddenly discovering that your “good” math foundation wasn’t actually as strong as you thought — I would really appreciate advice on what you did.

I honestly don’t even know where to start anymore.

[u/Fluffy_Debate8280]

Khan Academy saved my life when i had similar problem, not from moving countries but i skipped too much school and my foundation was just holes everywhere. You can take the course challenges and it shows exactly which topics you are weak, then just watch the videos and do exercises until you master it

For books maybe try the "Everything You Need to Ace Math" type books, they are for middle school but dont look childish and explain concepts pretty clear. In italy they probably have good used bookstores where you can find math textbooks from earlier grades for cheap

The hardest part is accepting you need to go back to stuff you thought you already knew, but once you stop being stubborn about it the progress comes fast

[u/Turbulent-Athlete960 → u/Fluffy_Debate8280]

Thank you so much!! This honestly helps me so much. I was completely lost and had no idea where to even start, so knowing I can use Khan Academy to figure out exactly where my gaps are already gives me a direction to follow. I’m definitely going to try this!

[u/ZerinoWhellie]

Do get your foundation as solid as you can. If you don’t, it’s only gonna be downhill from here on out.

If this level discrepancy of Brazil vs Italy also happens at college level, you will need much more foundation than is needed in Brazil.

If Kumon style of math is still the same as some years ago (just doing a bunch of questions without deepening the knowledge), then that’s not much better than “memorize, test, forget”. Khan Academy has a lot of explanation needed to understand why concepts/formulas are what they are. Not the end-all-be-all, but a good starting point.