4 Powerful Maths Tricks | Math Magic tricks and methods

As the name suggests, mental math refers to the ability to do a calculation in your head without using pen and paper. In the digital age where calculators are present on our phones and tabs, this sounds crazy, right? But the calculations that you will perform using mental maths skills would give you results and activate your brain, and there are other benefits that it offers you.

Mental maths would help you in establishing relationships between numbers and hence would make your calculations easier and fun. Once you start doing mental maths, your mind would wander about the ideas on how to get good at mental maths.

There are myriad ways to make calculations easier by improving your mental maths skills.

Find the perfect complement

While playing with numbers, try to find the complement of each.

The complement of a number is nothing but the number which added will give numbers like 10,100, etc. Take, for example, the complement of 2 is 8 and vice-versa.

Complements would make your calculation more straightforward, and eventually, you get the hang of it.

Use complements during addition

Suppose you have to perform addition on a series of numbers, and it might look challenging to you, but to make it simple, all you have to do is to create a group of compliments.

Let’s understand this with an example:

Q: Add 2+9+8+7+1+3+5+6+4

Solution: We will form a group of complements now

[2+8]+[9+1]+[6+4]+[3+7]+5 = 10+10+10+10+5 = 45.

Voila!!

Multiplication in parts

When we have to multiply two numbers, we can approach it, so we break it into parts and then perform the multiplication and then simply add the results, and you will be amazed to see how
quickly it's done.

Let’s take an example to understand this:

Multiply: 5x84 = (5x80) + (5x4) = 400 + 20.

Yes, it could be this simple!

Division tricks

While dividing numbers, try to reduce the numbers in smaller numbers, and this logic would make your division super-quick.

Suppose you have to divide (144/16). Let’s reduce it into smaller numbers:

144/16 = 72/8 = 36/4 = 18/2 = 9

If you will remember the table (at least till 10), then your division would be done at the second step itself.

Make percentage easier

When you have to calculate the percentage of any number, then try thinking of it as multiplication. Imagine you have to figure 10% of 380, then remember that calculating 10% of any number is equal to multiplying the number with 0.1 so, your answer would be 0.1x380 = 38.

Keep practicing these mental math tricks and keep solving the mental math questions. To improve your skills, you can also solve the mental maths games for class 5 and mental maths for class 6.

Practicing these tricks would make you shine brighter when it comes to mental maths, and you might feel like the Shakuntala Devi of your class.