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Speed Math Tricks and Tips for Banking and Government Exams

Banking and government exams comprise numerical ability sections. Some students struggle with the difficulty level of maths but everybody fears the time window provided. All exams ranging from SBI PO, SBI Clerk, S SC CGL, RRB Clerk, RRB PO require speed math techniques.

In this blog, you shall discover evergreen speed math tricks and techniques which will ensure you solve the banking exam questions within seconds.

Here are various calculation-based speed math tricks:

Square of a number which ends with 5

Let’s take the number 75 here. Follow the steps given below to calculate the square value of 75 within seconds.

Ignore 5 in the unit’s place.
Now take the number 7 which in the tens place and multiply it with its successor which is 8. So, 7×8 = 56. The number we just calculated will be placed first in the order to get the answer.
All you have to do now is to put 25 behind 56. Yes, it’s really that easy. The final answer is 5625.

You can do these calculations in your head. With good practice, you will be way ahead of others. The same technique is applicable in solving three-digit numbers ending with 5 as well.

Division of 5

Now you will learn to divide any three-digit number by 5 without following the conventional method. Let’s take the number 555.

Follow this two-step match trick:

Multiply 555 by 2. This will give us 1110.
Now simply remove zero from 1110. This leaves us with 110. That’s your answer.

You can even do this for decimal value figures. Let’s take the number 145.2.

Do the same, first multiply 145.2 by 2. This gives us 290.4. Now simply move left from the decimal place by 1 position. You will get 29.04. That’s your answer.

Learning Tables

There are many tricks available to us for doing speed maths but there are certain calculations you will have to remember thoroughly. One of them is tables. You should be able to answer immediately if asked anything up to the tables of 30. You need to visit your school days. Learning the tables will help you in implementing many of the speed math techniques.

Learning Square Root & Cube Values

These are also meant to be learnt well because they also play a vital role in speeding up the calculations. Ideally, you can put up the charts of all such figures which you need to remember. Keep revising them because you are creating a base for speed maths by doing all this stuff.

Number	Cube Value	Number	Cube Value
1	1	16	4096
2	8	17	4913
3	27	18	5832
4	64	19	6859
5	125	20	8000
6	216	21	9261
7	343	22	10648
8	512	23	12617
9	729	24	13284
10	1000	25	15625
11	1331	26	17576
12	1728	27	19683
13	2197	28	21952
14	2744	29	24389
15	3375	30	27000

Mug-up Fractional Values

You should be able to learn all the fractional values and equivalent percentages till the number 15. Are you are wondering how can learning fractions help you?

Well, you will need them while solving the questions of Profit, Loss, Percentage, Data Interpretation, Averages, etc. The right way to learn fractions is by learning both the percentages and each of their corresponding fractions. For example – 25% is ¼, 6.25% is 1/16, and so on.

Here is the list of the percentages and their fractional values till 15

1/1	1	100%
1/2	0.5	50%
1/3	0.33	33.33%
1/4	0.25	25%
1/5	0.2	20%
1/6	0.167	16.7%
1/7	0.143	14.3%
1/8	0.125	12.5%
1/9	0.11	11.11%
1/10	0.1	10%
1/11	0.0909	9.09%
1/12	0.083	8.33%
1/13	0.077	7.7%
1/14	0.0714	7.14%
1/15	0.0667	6.67%

You can make your table exactly like the one above.

Conclusion

Once you have memorised all these figures you can start taking different mock tests as per your target exam such as SBI PO, S BI Clerk, SSC CGL, RRB Clerk, RRB PO to solve numerical ability questions. Make sure you are able to match your speed with accuracy. It will be disappointing if you fall in the loop of negative marking just to excel your speed. Although mock tests will help you with that for sure provided that you are consistent. It is essential that you give at least 1-1.5 hours daily for numerical ability practice and tests.

The ultimate aim of learning all these tables, square values, fractions is to have the ability to solve the questions mentally or apply these values directly without calculating.

There are many other short tricks and methods but there is no point in learning them in one go. Once you are done implementing them then you should move on to other types of tricks and methods. Otherwise, it will get extremely difficult for you to cope up with all the speed maths techniques.

Still, have some doubts about what we discussed in this blog? Leave your queries in the comment section below. We will surely respond to them.

Vishwas Agarwal