# Brilliant.org is useless for me

I registered to brilliant.org, because I've allways sucked at maths and I was told I could learn here. The fact is that I'm confronted with a set of problems and I don't have any clue or idea on how to solve them.

In my opinion, this site is useless for learning. Maybe it's fun if you already learnt the maths, but it's not what I need.

Note by Josep Gregori
4 years, 7 months ago

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One year ago, I was completly a disaster doing maths, because in my school we only thaught bored and long things without any reasonement and Maths were the subject I hated most. Then, while I was searching some exercises to prepare a boring examen, I found this website. I signed up at level 1 at everything and now 10 months later I love maths, and I can do my math's boring exams without having to prepare them. Thanks Brilliant for showing us how beautiful Maths can be.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

Thanks for your feedback. This gives us encouragement to continue what we are doing.

Staff - 4 years, 7 months ago

I think Brilliant should allow users to manually level down but not up. This is justifiable as far as I think. What do you think Peter and Calvin?

- 4 years, 7 months ago

I completely agree!!!

- 4 years, 7 months ago

I sent you guys an email telling you that I was placed in a wrong combinatorics section, and I didn't get a reply. Here's the story: I accidentally solved level 5, and I certainly do not belong in there. I probably belong in level 3. My request was to put me in level 4 or below, but I didn't get a reply. Can you help me with this?

- 4 years, 7 months ago

When you get too many cross or can't solve problems, you go automatically to a lower level. But at least you can try to solve level 5 problems and I think level 4 or level 3 and level 5 have at least 1 problem in common (just my own thought ) .

- 4 years, 7 months ago

As Sadman pointed out, you were automatically adjusted to Level 4 already, which is why we didn't send you a personal reply. I've further reduced you to level 3, and you would have received the corresponding set at the start of a new week.

Staff - 4 years, 6 months ago

Hi Josep,

What would make Brilliant.org more useful to you? We tend to get very conflicting feedback from people as to whether or not Brilliant is a good place to learn, and further thoughts you have would be appreciated.

Staff - 4 years, 7 months ago

I just wanna ask to owner. i was claim brilliant T-shirt amoung 1 month ago. and until now i have not heard about the shirt up to my place. what about this? -__-

- 4 years, 7 months ago

Be patient. They are guaranteed to arrive. You live in Indonesia, that's a long ways away.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

how long i'm wait?

- 4 years, 7 months ago

I too ordered and that too before you. But it still didn't arrive.

- 4 years, 6 months ago

Are you aware that there is a practice section on brilliant? Just look at the top of homepage. You can learn many things there.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

This site has given me a lot. Earlier, I was a ramble walking through course books with no aim. I was interested in science but didn't have any direction. Then I met brilliant, it changed my whole life. I started discovering things that I never knew of. When brilliant introduced summer camp, I started analyzing myself as to what I want to do and why. I realized there are much more interested things in the field of science that I was unaware of. Then I met the world of programming when Hunger Games were introduced. I started learning Python. Python was like a golden tool which I was searching from a long while ago. It helped me do various things which I wasn't able to do earlier, like making graphs or running simulations to analyze a situation. Additionally, I got in touch with many amazing people. Brilliant provided gave me aim of my life. I haven't seen any site more considerate than Brilliant.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

But, you can learning with "Past Solution" in next week if you can't solve that ^^

- 4 years, 7 months ago

I agree with this. Before looking at the solutions though, you should think about the problem for a while (in other words, don't give up so easily, you won't learn as much if you do). If you don't understand the solution(s), you can always comment asking for an explanation to the parts you don't understand.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

The point in Brilliant.org is for you to apply the math that you have learned and use it and your problem-solving skills to figure out a solution. If you have absolutely no clue how to solve the week's problem set, then maybe you should consider ranking down a level (by getting the problems wrong) so that you are in a more comfortable zone.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

I think there is a big issue with 'brilliant'. At this point I don't know anymore if the intention of the founders was to create a better way to learn math or to challenge people in math. But either way, the line between this two is thin, and I assume many people seek this site for their difficulty in learning math. I'm an engineer, the first course I took was quant. finance. Despite I know my way in probability, it has been a long time since I last used it, so I remembered little about it. In the beginning of the course things were going ok, but when problems begun using conditional probability I saw a big flaw in the system. For me, already knowing math pretty well, it was easy (but boring) reading the wiki pages, but applying Bayes' theorem isn't very trivial and I wasn't very sure of how to do it. Many of the problems' solutions did not even use the theorems, just plain logic applied with probability concepts (which is way more easy to understand as a solution, but way more difficulty to learn how to apply as a tool to solve your own problems). As for me the path was as easy as reading boring theorems and applying them, but someone else who struggles at math would feel even more "bad at math" and probably. Second point: it took me a while to find out that there was (practically hidden) a section with "mathematics prerequisites" in the course. Going further and clicking at "probability theory" there was a sequence of easier problems mostly with links to the same wiki pages.

In conclusion I would say that 'brilliant' is a great tool to improve math related knowledge and solving skills [for those who already know/like math]. At the same time it is terrible to learn math from scratch and even worse to people who has traumas like "I'm no good at math": as everyday trying to solve a problem, failing and not understanding the solution or theory behind it only reiterates the trauma.

At least I suggest creating an introduction page explaining where to begin, how courses works, where you can find complementary material and so on.

- 3 months ago

I have learned more here, Brilliant.org. Because, actually, I don't know the technique how to solve a problems in mathematics. This site brought me a lot of things, such as how about the steps to solve problems (mind of people solve the problems), Math theorems (fundamental, you must be known about Vieta's formula, I have been using that for long times ago in senior high school, but I just realized that have a name). So, Thank you very much Brilliant, last, the Computer Science section is great section too..

- 4 years, 6 months ago

This website is to develop the skills in mathematics not to learn. I have learned some useful techniques in solving some problem.

- 4 years, 6 months ago

One thing is certainly true that nowadays I don't see articles about various mathematical topics which used to be there before. But certainly this is not a useless website for learning. In fact its extremely great website and you will start liking it definitely. :)

- 4 years, 7 months ago

- 4 years, 7 months ago

Ok. Got it.. Thanks Pranav.. :)

- 4 years, 7 months ago

As a maths teacher at a college, I find this web site very useful.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

True, it's really difficult. But some of the problems even I can do. And when I do I feel great!

- 4 years, 7 months ago

Do the practice sessions. They are right next to the challenges section.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

I believe that Brilliant is a great way to get better at math. In fact, my math teachers gave this website to us. It works youre brain. It has solutions after problems to help you find out where you went wrong

- 4 years, 6 months ago

I want to adjust my level to level 3 or 4, but I can't. There are math problems I can't solve on level 5. How can I lower my level?

- 4 years, 6 months ago

Welcome Hisham!

Email me at discussions@brilliant.org and state which topics you would like to be leveled down in and I will adjust them accordingly.

Staff - 4 years, 6 months ago

Hi, have hints been implemented yet? This would help ease Josep's and others' issues with not being able to solve any of the problems.

- 4 years, 6 months ago

Maybe we should be allowed to manually set ourselves to a certain level rather than allowing brilliant to up our levels automatically. What I mean is... sometimes we can do level 3 perfectly yet not understand a single question in level 4. In this case, we shouldn't waste time on level 4 isn't it? :D

- 4 years, 7 months ago

Its not big waste of time man! And I don't think that after perfectly solving all problems at level three you won't even understand the problems at level 4. For sure you are joking. :D

- 4 years, 7 months ago

haha. but most of it wont understand. for me... i dont have much time now to slowly ponder over brilliant questions due to exams. So.. got pushed down from level 5. But... it's really hard to understand questions from level 4/5!! especially combinatorics and those weird signs i never see before!

- 4 years, 7 months ago

Hmm.. but good that at such an early age you are doing all this. I wasted important time of my life just like that.

- 4 years, 7 months ago

haha. true

- 4 years, 7 months ago