mathematics

Sue Singer

Sue Singer is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sue Singer rather than just read about it. In short: Sue Singer is a British mathematics educator. She is the former headmistress of Guildford High School, a girls' school in Surrey, the former president of the Girls' Schools Association, and the former president of the Mathematical Association.

Key takeaways

Sue Singer belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sue Singer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sue Singer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sue Singer is a British mathematics educator. She is the former headmistress of Guildford High School, a girls' school in Surrey, the former president of the Girls' Schools Association, and the former president of the Mathematical Association.

Career Singer married and had children before studying at the university level, and began her university studies in 1971 with a mathematics course at the Open University, in its first class of students. After completing a degree through the Open University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Garnett College, she became a mathematics teacher at St Paul's Girls' School, and eventually head of mathematics there, before becoming headmistress at Guildford. She retired from Guildford in 2002 and later became a recruitment consultant, leading the schools practice at Saxton Bampfylde.

Association leadership As president of the Girls' Schools Association, she led calls to replace the General Certificate of Secondary Education examination system by teacher evaluations. Singer was president of the Mathematical Association for the 2005–2006 term. She is an avid sailor, and her presidential address to the Mathematical Association included mathematical problems associated with sailing as examples of the applicability of mathematics to everyday life, a topic that she felt should be emphasized in mathematical teaching.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sue Singer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sue Singer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sue Singer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sue Singer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sue Singer

In research: Sue Singer appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sue Singer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sue Singer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of the Open University, British mathematicians, British mathematics educators, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sue Singer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sue Singer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sue Singer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sue Singer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sue Singer in simple terms?

Why does Sue Singer matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sue Singer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sue Singer.