by Craig Buck

Created on: August 06, 2010   Last Updated: August 07, 2010

Mental maths can be the bane of people's lives.  The need to think quickly on your feet when in a supermarket or in other situations can leave one feeling embarrassed if unable to arrive at the right answer.  Math Workout for Android smartphones won't necessarily help you in these situations, but it will help you improve you mental arithmetic skills in anticipation of a tricky situation.

Before you start using the application to help with your maths, you can set the difficulty level and the number of questions asked, this will then allow the software to test you at the correct level.  You can choose from easy, medium or hard and from 10, 20 or 50 questions.  Initially, medium and hard levels are locked until you can complete the "I'm feeling clever" section on easy mode in under 23 seconds, more of this later.

The app comes with six game modes, each of them testing you out in different ways.  The first mini game is Addition and Subtraction, this gives you simple addition and subtraction sums which you need to answer correctly to move on the the next one.  When you have answered all the questions, you are presented with your time along with a number of wrong attempts which each come with a five second penalty.  You can now view the high scores for this mini game or return to the home screen.

The next mini game is Multiplication and Division.  This works in exactly the same way as Addition and Subtraction so no further description is required.

The next mode is called "I'm feeling clever". As previously mentioned, this mode can be used to unlock more difficult questions from within the app.  In order to do this you need to answer all questions correctly in a time of under 23 seconds, including any time penalties you may incur.  This takes a lot of practise and is not straightforward.  For this mode, you get questions on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division so it is worth playing the earlier modes to get your brain in gear for this.

The fourth mode consists of just one question but requires total concentration.  You are given a starting number, followed by a sequence of operations you need to perform such as, add 10, divide by 3, etc.  All of these operations need to be applied to the running total.  At the end of the sequence you are required to give what the answer is.  This is a quickfire game which is sure to improve your ability to act quickly with mental sums.

Once you are confident in your ability, it's time to test your skills against players all over the world.  The Online World Challenge gives you 50 questions which you must answer in as quick a time as possible with the normal five second penalty for a wrong answer. Once you have answered all the questions you can submit your score to an online leaderboard which shows your global position for the current day.  These questions are difficult, adding square numbers and square roots to the traditional addition, subtraction, division and multiplication we have already come across.

The final mini game is Math Blaster Challenge. This game is like space invaders where you must answer a sum before the sum bubble hits the bottom of the screen.  You score a point for each correct answer and begin the game with 1 extra life.  This is a tricky game but it forces you to react quickly which will improve your ability to do quick sums on the spot.

On the whole, Math Workout is a great app and will be beneficial to people of all mathematical abilities.  The app is available from the Android store, free of charge. 

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