- #1
Magenta55
- 4
- 0
Hi folks, can you guys share your experience and tips for understanding this subject?
I find the sheer amount of problems and their novelty very difficult to reconcile. I mean I understand the definitions and theorems well and can usually apply them in straight forward cases, but the many variations of problems is causing me trouble. For instance, we can have permutations, permutations of several cases, combinations without repetition, combinations with repetition, or even a mixture of these cases.
I have been fine with other topics that are not algorithmic in nature, for instance, it's easier for me to prove elementary topics in mathematics, even if the problems are novel. But when it comes to combinatorics, I can't solve a truly novel problem correctly the first time around. My problem is, I can only solve problems of similar types only after I have been exposed to how to solve them. Is this normal in this subject? Is the only remedy solving more problems?
Thanks.
I find the sheer amount of problems and their novelty very difficult to reconcile. I mean I understand the definitions and theorems well and can usually apply them in straight forward cases, but the many variations of problems is causing me trouble. For instance, we can have permutations, permutations of several cases, combinations without repetition, combinations with repetition, or even a mixture of these cases.
I have been fine with other topics that are not algorithmic in nature, for instance, it's easier for me to prove elementary topics in mathematics, even if the problems are novel. But when it comes to combinatorics, I can't solve a truly novel problem correctly the first time around. My problem is, I can only solve problems of similar types only after I have been exposed to how to solve them. Is this normal in this subject? Is the only remedy solving more problems?
Thanks.