Certain beginning steps are essential for solving most problems. For example, students have to read the problems and be able to recognize the given, wanted, and needed information. Students should also be able to eliminate the extra information in the problem. These initial steps are common to virtually all problems; the next steps will depend on the specific conditions of the problem.

One of the most important skills for successful problem solving is the ability to envision data in different ways. Data may be organized in a table, graph, or diagram. These different representations illustrate different aspects of the problem. The problems presented in this section demonstrate the effectiveness of particular methods of data organization.

  Explore some of the different methods for organizing data