[dvwobuq]

I can entirely relate to this.

About three weeks into my first undergraduate class on abstract algebra, it dawned on me that the instructor wasn't giving me math tests. He was giving me vocabulary tests. In that class, most of the answers to questions flow straight from the definitions. Once I broke out the flashcards and started memorizing definitions, that class became almost trivial.

I used flashcards in all my classes after that to memorize terms, definitions, and concepts. Math and engineering are, for me anyway, like a foreign language. To converse in that language fluently, one must be very comfortable with the vocabulary. It just makes sense.

[anyfoo]

Well put, and I like that analogy. You have to learn the vocabulary, and only then are you well equipped to discuss grammar and finer subtleties of the language. It goes hand in hand.