Word Problems Not my strong suit

One method that might help is to draw the empty picture first without the values, so you have an empty template. Then as you read through the question and see the numbers for premium or yields, you can add those to your picture. Once you’ve added all the numbers, you can then redraw the picture so that it is “balanced” correctly and see the positions of the missing values.

You can use this strategy on other word problems too. Whenever you see a number just pull that information out from the question, briefly noting down what it is. Sometimes just seeing all the numbers together in one place with your own description is all that it takes to make more sense.

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