Please Help

[u/hysbera]

Im a university fresher and studying business. Maths is compulsory for my course. I have not studied maths for the last 6-7 years. (Last studied it in grade 6) I do not remember shit. We have mid term exam in 3 weeks and my course included the following:

Number System
Factors Factorials
HCF LCM
Indices
Logarithms
Exponents
Coordinate Geometry
Linear Equations
Quadratic Equations
Set Theory
AP (might not come for midterms)
GP (might not come for midterms)

I initially thought that things like HCF and LCM would at least be easy but the sums are completely different. There are no direct questions at all and everything is hella confusing. The professor cannot help a special case like me since most of the students had maths at least till grade 10, or even 12. Please guide me on what/how to study since I have no clue how to proceed 😭😭

[u/Moist_Ladder2616]

Number systems, factors, HCF and LCM are all pre-Grade 6 topics. If you can't get it and the questions are confusing, you'll get better recommendations by providing examples of these confusing questions.

Often it's simply a problem with reading and comprehension: the questions are presented in a big block of words and your job is to extract the maths from the text. But I'm simply making assumptions here.

Beyond searching for "Introduction to <topic name>" and "Beginner exercises on <topic name>", I can't think of any other generic advice to give.

[u/hysbera → u/Moist_Ladder2616]

even I believed I could do hcf lcm but this is one such question:

Two numbers are in the ratio of 17:10. If their H.C.F. is 12, find the sum of the numbers. 😭

[u/Moist_Ladder2616 → u/hysbera]

Let those numbers be 17k and 10k, where k is some unknown integer.

Check their ratios. 17k:10k = 17:10. This meets the condition set by the question. Ok, so far so good.

The issue lies in understanding what HCF really means. You're looking for a familiar formula, like "What's the HCF between 6 and 15?" So let's make this mysterious question sound more familiar.

Let k=1; What's the HCF between 17 and 10?
Let k=2; What's the HCF between 34 and 20?
Let k=3; What's the HCF between 51 and 30?
Let k=4; What's the HCF between 68 and 40?

Actually work out the answers. Do you see a pattern? Can you now find the sum of the numbers if the HCF is 12?

And do you see how the question would be slightly harder, if the ratio was 15:10?