Tutoring Packet: Saturday July 30

Topics for Today:

1. Exponents
2. Similar Triangles and proportions
3. Number line operations
4. Mean, median, mode
5. Operational value conversions
6. Percents percents percents.
Notes for Exponents

The most common exponent question is the simplification question.

● It might have fractions.

● It might have “solve for x.”

No matter what it has, it almost always starts with simplification.

2=2
4=2*2
8=2*2*2
16 = 2 * 2 * 2 * 2
64 = 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2

When you see the numbers 4, 8, 16, 64 as the base number,

2
● turn 4 into 2 .
3
● turn 8 into 2 .
4
● turn 16 into 2 .
5
● turn 16 into 2 .

2
16
What is 64
?

This is a simplification question.

4
● Turn 16 into 2 .
5
● Turn 64 into 2 .

2 4 4
Since the question is 16 , that means the top is 16 * 16 or 2 * 2.

Top: (2 * 2 * 2 * 2) * (2 * 2 * 2 * 2)
There are 8 twos on the top.

5
Bottom: The bottom is 64 which 2 which is the same as having 5 twos.

8 on the top. 5 on the bottom. 5 of them will cancel out.

3
The final answer is 3 twos leftover on the top. The final answer 2 or 8.
Notes for Similar Triangles and Proportions

There are 2 BIG clues that tell you you are doing a similar triangle and proportion question.

Clue 1: You can see the shape of a Z.

Clue 2: You can form 2 triangles.

The most important thing to remember:

● long side triangle 1 goes with long side triangle 2
● short side triangle 1 goes with short side triangle 2

Example: Triangle1 has sides 3,4,5 and Triangle2 has sides 9, x, y

This means:
● 3 pairs with 9
● 4 pairs with x
● 5 pairs with y

Each pairing has to be proportional. This is a pretty simple pairing because the numbers are
convenient.
3 → 9 by doing times 3.
4 → x by doing times 3. x has to equal 12.
5 → y by doing times 3. y has to equal 15.

What about for harder numbers?

Example: Triangle 1: 7, 8, 23 and Triangle 2: 4, x, y

This time, it’s not easy to do it just by looking at it. Set up a fraction proportion.

In english: 7 goes to 4 as 8 goes to x.

7 8
In math: 4
= 𝑥

Solve for x by cross multiplying: 7𝑥 = 4 · 8

4·8 32
And then get x by itself: 𝑥= 7
= 7
.

32/7 is the answer.

Number Line Operations

We all know what a number line is.

________________________________________
-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The basic idea behind every number line question is: Which number is bigger?

Point A = 2 and Point B = 3.

Which number is bigger?

Duh … 3 is bigger than 2. Point A is bigger than Point B.

Where it gets tricky is when we have fractions and squaring of fractions.

1 1 2
Point A: 4
and Point B: ( 4 )

Usually squaring a number makes the number bigger.

2
3 = 9 is bigger than 3.

1 2
2
1 1
(3) = 2 = 9
.
3

1/9 = 0.1111111
1/3 = 0.333333

Actually, by squaring 1/3 into 1/9, the number became smaller.

Additional things to notice:

● Notice the word smallest to biggest or biggest to smallest. Order matters.
● Notice whether there is a negative sign.
● Notice if a number is squared.
Mean, Median, and Mode

Finding the mean (also called the average)

1. Add every number up
2. Count up how many people or items there are.
3. Divide the total by the number of people.

Number of people Number of Groceries

20 5

10 3

100 1

How many total people are there?

20 + 10 + 100 = 130

How many total groceries are there?

20 people bought 5 = 100
10 people bought 3 = 30
100 people bought 1 = 100
100 + 30 + 100 = 230

230
Average number of groceries is 130
.

Written as a decimal: 230/130 = 1.77.

Finding the mode:

What is the most frequent number in the list?

Sample List: [2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 2]
The most frequent number is 2.

Looking at the grocery table, the most frequent grocery is 1 grocery because that is what 100 people
chose. The mode for the table is 1.

Finding the median:

List all of the numbers from smallest to largest.

The median will be the middle number.

List: [10, 8, 6, 100, 100, 100, 1, 12]

From smallest to largest:

[1, 6, 8, 10, 12, 100, 100, 100]

The middle number is a tie between 10 and 12.

That means, we will take the average of 10 and 12 which will give us the middle number between it.

10 + 12
2
= 11

The median of the list is 11.