About This Quiz
One of the benefits of majoring in math is the lack of reading and writing papers, right? WRONG! Math has its own language and it is important to be fluent in it if you plan to ace every test! Knowing your math vocabulary is half the battle when deciding what formula to use to get the correct answer. What's even more important to note is that everyday words can have a completely different meaning when they are connected to math. This is a major reason to refresh your math vocabulary!
Now, taking a course in math vocabulary may not be as creative or elegant as a course in creative writing or persuasive speech, but it is nonetheless important for a mathematician! From algebra to combinatorics, math vocabulary can get pretty extensive. Even the most strait-laced students can get a little fuzzy when recalling words they do not see or use every day. This is why studying your math vocabulary can have its benefits! Put yourself to the test and refresh your math vocabulary. You might be surprised at what you get, you could be the next Carl Gauss (one of the greatest mathematicians in history)! Or a mathematician vocabulary connoisseur in the making.
Integers are numbers without fractions, which is why they are known as whole numbers. Pi, for example, is not an integer, because it is 3.14 and not 3 or 4. Most people just call integers numbers, which includes negative numbers.
An arithmetic mean is the "average" of a set of numerical values. We typically learn this as "average" instead of "mean" in elementary school, adding up all the numbers in a set and dividing by the set of numbers to determine the average.
Although the word "algorithm" can be used to describe the process of solving math equations or any other set of instructions, we often hear it now with regard to advertising on our social media. Have you seen people complain about the "Facebook algorithm" when they see unwanted ads? That's because Facebook is looking at all your interactions and demographics and making decisions about what to show you.
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The pyramid is a three-dimensional shape. A triangle is its two-dimensional analogue, similar to how a sphere is the three-dimensional version of a circle and a cube is that of a square.
Congruent means exactly the same or identical. In geometry, congruent figures are identical, although you may see some tricky iterations like mirror images, making congruent figures *seem* incongruent.
In order to determine circumference, you would use the formula 2πr. That means that if you multiply the radius of the circle by 2 and by the number pi, you'll know how far around it is.
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The Law of Sines is a trigonometric term that describes how angles relate to the opposite sides of a triangle. Committing these laws to memory will help you if you're studying precalc or calculus! It is described as follows: a/sin A = b/sin B = c/sin C
Amplitude can be a confusing term, because we often think of "amp" as related to making things louder, or amplify. In fact, amplitude simply describes how far a wave ranges in distance from zero.
Here's a word you probably never thought you'd need to know! Vinculum is just a line, but it's a very particular sort of line: one that indicates that an operation beneath it needs to be done altogether or that the items below it are a unit.
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Ordinal numbers go ... you guessed it ... in order! Cardinal numbers are just positive integers, beginning with zero. Of course, math has many words to describe the same idea ... or maybe that's an English problem!
Every triangle has three "medians" that are straight lines from the vertex, or meeting point of two lines, to the midpoint of the opposite side. Where all three medians intersect is the centroid.
An annulus is just the math term for a ring. If you subtract the area of the open space from the area of the entire circle, you can figure out the area of the ring itself. Seems scary, but t's actually pretty approachable!
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The word "solid" in geometry is just another way to say three-dimensional, like a cube or rectangular prism. Don't worry, that doesn't mean that two-dimensional shapes are liquids, gases or vapors.
Think about an ice cream cone: unlike other geometric figures, it tapers to an end that you need to get to before the ice cream makes it soggy. We'd have a major mess if we were served ice cream in edible cylinders instead!
If you really think about it, Buzz Lightyear's "To infinity ... and beyond" is impossible, because infinity is our definition for the most beyond — infinity is as far as it goes.
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A sinusoid is defined as a curve similar to the sine function, but shifted either in phase, amplitude, period or some combination of these. We're just glad it's not related to stuffy noses and headaches.
A radian is a seriously intense concept. You know what a radius is, right? Imaging lying the length of the radius along the circumference of the circle. The angle those two lines create is called the "radian." 3.4 radians = 180 degrees, which is a half-circle. Is your mind blown yet?
The cube root of 8 is 2. How do you get that? Divide 8 by 2: 4. Then divide it by 2 again: 2! Cubes are created when we multiply a number by itself and then by itself again: 2 x 2 x 2 = 8, so 2 cubed = 8, and the cube root is the opposite operation, making the cube root of 8 = 2.
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A coefficient is defined as the number multiplied by a variable in an algebraic expression. An example of this would be the 2 in the equation 2x + 5 =11. In this equation, x = 3, so 2 x 3 = 6, and 6 + 5 = 11.
Absolute value describes how far any number is from zero, whether that number is positive or negative. So absolute value is always a positive value, although — surprise! — it can also equal zero.
The denominator is what is being divided. In the equation 56 / 8 = 7, the divisor is 8, which means that you have 56 of something and you're splitting it into groups of 8. You end up with 7 groups of 8 (or 8 groups of 7, if 7 is the divisor).
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A horizontal line runs from left to right without going up or down, so it has zero slope. You probably don't want your life to have zero slope, because nothing would ever change!
A real number that can't be made by dividing two integers is known as an irrational number. Have you heard of the number e. That's one. So is pi! On the other hand, 1/3, which is a never-ending decimal, is a rational number because it can be expressed with a fraction.
A hexagon is a six-sided polygon. Examples of hexagons are all around us and include honeycomb, stop signs, and even fly eyes! Other polygons are as simple as squares and as complicated as the chiliagon, which has 1,000 sides!
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In an isosceles triangle, the angles opposite the equal sides are also equal. Other types of triangles are equilateral, which has three equal sides, and scalene, which has no equal sides at all.
If someone paints your portrait, you might want them to create a proportional piece of art: in other words, not a caricature where your head is much larger than any other body part.
Just like a cube is a number multiplied by itself two times, a square is a number multiplied by itself one time. So 2 squared is 4, and therefore the inverse, or square root, of 4 = 2. What's the square root of 16? How about 144?
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A scatterplot takes a set of data and plots each point on a plane without drawing any lines between them. Therefore the viewer can see each element and draw their own conclusions about relationships between the data points.
The diameter measures the distance from one side of a circle to the other. The diameter is double the radius. Fun fact: Pi is equal to a circle's circumference divided by its diameter, although, spoiler, the result will always be 3.14!
PEMDAS might be something you learned as a kid. It helps you remember the order of operations and when to do what: Start with parentheses, then exponents, multiplication and division, and finally addition and subtraction.
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Logic looks for consistency and validity in its results. If you've seen geometric proofs, they're using mathematical logic to offer evidence and reasoning. It's another way of "showing your work."
An acute angle is less than 90°. All triangles have a total of 180° in their three angles. A triangle may have three 60° angles, making it equilateral, or it may have angles of different sizes.
An arc is any portion besides the entire curve of the circumference of a circle. A chord is a line inside the circle whose endpoints touch the circle, making the diameter the longest chord in any circle.
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A bar model offers a visual representation to show the relationship between quantities. For example, you might see bars of different sizes with numbers in them to help teach algebra. If you saw a large bar that said 16 and a smaller bar that said 3x, you would surmise that x is less than 6. If you saw equal bars that said 18 and 3x, you would surmise that x = 6.
One may be the loneliest number, but we learn all about "one" early. It's the first number most of us learn, and the first math concept we learn, often before we can even string words together!