On using formulas

[valkener]

Hey y'all,

I'm brushing up my math with Magoosh right now, and they have a very methodological approach and their problems are very hard (I think a lot of them fit better with the GMAT). Anyway, I am bad at math but slowly progressing. While this is exciting I am relying a lot on formulas that I am memorizing. These formulas are becoming somewhat of second nature but are sometimes lengthy to use.

Am I going the wrong direction here? Just wondering because I read that using the formula approach takes too long.

[iowaguy]

Sometimes "plugging in" is faster. But it is nice to be able to come up with the formulas from scratch, on some problems that is the only way to get the solution in a reasonable amount of time. And some problems are fill-in-the-blank, which doesn't lend itself (obviously) to "plugging in". So, what I do, is a quick glance to see whether plugging in or generating a formula is the best and then proceed accordingly...

[Willows]

I would focus on memorizing the geometry formulas. Geometry questions don't often lend themselves to the plugging in method unlike Algebra ones.