I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the most passionate, effective, and experienced math professors in Canada. Professor Emeritus Jack Weiner is somewhat of a legend at the University of Guelph. He has literally taught multiple generations of students and has never stopped learning along the way. Luckily for future university and college students, Jack is still helping students across the country get ready for university math through his Math Post-Secondary Preparedness Package (MP^3). The MP^3 is a problem set that will help you review all of the relevant material from high school to make sure that you’re in your mathematical prime by the time you get to campus. In this article, I’ll go through all of the reasons why you SHOULD do the MP^3 and how you can get it!
The MP^3 is:
1. Free
It’s incredible, I know. Every student in Canada can access the MP^3 without paying a dime. A .pdf version of the MP^3 can be found at co-author Sarah Stubbs’ Lifegears website. An interactive version of this package can be accessed through the Wizedemy website (they are one of HigherEdPoints’ newest participating institutions!). All of the original features of the MP^3 have been retained, and with the Wize version, you can also get instant feedback on your answers, see solutions and try additional practice questions. Wizdemy also has a great interface and progress monitoring tools that make it easy to stay on track! You can learn more about Wize’s version on their blog post here, and can also check out Wize’s FAQs on HigherEdPoints!
2. Short
Jack understands that most people don’t need a thousand questions to review a topic and that most students have other things to do with their summers (like taking a break from the books!). That’s why the MP^3 is only 11 chapters long, with mostly just 5-10 problems per chapter. If you do a chapter a day, you’ll be done in less than two weeks! Yes, you will have to devote some time to this, but a little bit of hard work right now could save you a lot of stress in the future.
3. Excellent At Covering Everything
Sometimes the biggest barrier to understanding a new concept is gaps in your prerequisite knowledge. This package avoids that problem by taking you all the way back to grade 8 mathematics to make sure everything is crystal clear before tackling some of the more difficult topics. It covers everything from operations with fractions to polynomial division and calculus. Even if you are great at math, this package is almost guaranteed to deepen your understanding of high school math topics and give you some new perspective on concepts that you are already familiar with.
4. All About Full Solutions
For a math student, there is absolutely nothing worse than getting stuck on a problem and having no explanation as to where you’re going wrong. That will never be an issue with the MP^3; it has some of the most comprehensive solutions that I have ever seen. The solutions include written explanations of the answer, added detail about the specific type of problem, a list common errors that students make on that problem, AND point you toward two or more additional resources that can help to explain the concept even further if needed. It truly does not get any better than that!
5. Going To Help You Succeed
This is not your typical university preparation content because this stuff actually works. Jack has taught students at different levels of high school and university for a long time; he not only understands the math like the back of his hand, but he also knows how to make the concepts stick. The MP^3 is helpful to students in a wide range of programs too; economics, business, math, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Anybody taking a math course in their first year should give this package some attention.
To summarize, the MP^3 will help you do that thing… I’m forgetting the word now… the one that describes the purpose of school? Oh yeah, learning. It’s not designed to push you through problems, but rather to help you understand the reasoning behind them. It’s free, short, comprehensive, and it’s got solutions. What’s not to like? If you take the time to do the problems and reflect on their applications, you’ll be well on your way to a successful academic career in university, and you’ll start to understand how Jack gained his legendary status in the first place.
Professor Jack Weiner wrote the MP^3 in collaboration with Professor Hosh Pesotan from the University of Guelph’s mathematics department, and Sarah Stubbs who is the director and founder of Life Gears Academy Inc. HigherEdPoints’ Founder, Suzanne Tyson was involved with the first edition of the MP^3 and encouraged Jack to update this fabulous resource for 2020.
This article was researched and written by Arinze Imasogie. Arinze is a mechanical engineering student from Queen’s university who acts like a Swiss Army knife for HigherEdPoints! From blog posts to marketing solutions, Arinze plays a part in anything and everything as needed.