I have struggled in math for a long time,(not just this year). I think that the most difficult thing for me is math problems in which you have a variable and you have to make the equation correct by finding the value of the variable . 
     This has been challenging for me because once they get complicated I start to mix up the order in which I need to do things. For example, when you have an equation with the variable on both sides of the equal sign the first thing that you should do is combine like terms. what I usually do is move one of the numbers with a variable to the other. The thing that helped me the most is just doing over and over again. Mrs. Pope gave us   pop quiz mainly with these kinds of problems. I had to do it over and over again until I got it correct. 

When you have a right triangle with two known lengths you simply use A^2 plus B^ equals C^2. Why would you use this though? Here are some exapmles: Bob is trying to fix his roof, he has the latter that is 12 feet tall. The latter is 5 feet from his house. How tall is the wall is his house. 
     The first thing that you do is use a^2 plus b^ equals c^2. Lets say that a is 12 b is 5 and c is the unknown varible. You have to find 12 to the second power(144) and add it to 5 to the second power(25). The. (169). then you find the square root of 169 which is 13 so the unknown lenght is 13. Another example would be that you have a square table what is the area of the table. You need to plug in the numbers to this.

     Square roots are easy once you know how to do them. A square root is a number that times its self to get a number. For example the square root of 144 is 12. A perfect square is a number times it self such as 25 or 400. Some examples of a perfect square are 1,4,9,16,25.... There are so many. You just take any number and multiply it by its self.
     Lets say that you have this problem: Sally has a square  window in her room, the widow has an area of 16 square feet what is the lengths of the sides of her  widow. To find the answer to this problem you would have to find the square root of 16. Since 16 is a perfect square you can easily know that the sides of her window is 4 square feet.   

     If you have a positve number and exponent you have a positive number, but what about if you have a negative exponent. If you do have anumber that is not zero that is raised to negative exponent you would have a fraction or decimal not a negative number. 
      Your number would be positive because it would become a fraction. It would become a fraction because you cant work with negative exponents you have to make it a fraction. You make the exponent a fraction and then you would multipy out the problem. All numbers raised to a negative power are eqaul to a fration and not negative. They are never nore than one. The answer to a number with a negative exponent is allways a fraction or a decimal.