Sections:
Detailed Information About Searching
Quick Tips

Related Pages:
Guided Tour
About Search Criteria
Help (Introduction to the Web Site)
About Adobe Acrobat

The Detailed Information section provides a thorough description of how to search for our mathematics problems. The Quick Tips summarize a few essential nuggets that you should always keep in mind. For additional information on other pages see our step-by-step example of searching in the Guided Tour and our detailed information about our list of topics and other criteria in About Search Criteria. Be sure to read about the special software you’ll need to view many of our mathematics problems in About Adobe Acrobat Reader. Finally, our Help page provides assistance on topics other than searching.

Subsections:
Two Important Notes
Topics
Habits of Mind, Mathematics Background, Technology, and Duration
Keywords
Date
Combining Search Criteria
Starting Over

You can begin your search for mathematics problems in seven ways: by selecting from a list of Topics, Habits of Mind, Mathematics Background, Technology, or Duration; or by typing a Keyword or Date. You can also combine these different methods within a single search.

Before you read the detailed descriptions below, there are two important things to keep in mind about our searches:

• Don’t Press Back. Please avoid clicking you browser’s Back button when you’re working within our search screens. Instead, use the navigation buttons provided within each screen. Changes that you make on search pages may be lost if you press your browser’s Back button. In addition, you may see error messages when you press Back.

• Our Site Remembers Your Search Criteria. Our site remembers the search criteria you have selected until you either change them or click the Start New Search button (available on any search screen). (Some browser’s also start a new search whenever you go to the Mathematics Problems screen.
  For example, suppose that on the Technology screen, you select "Calculators and Graphing Calculators". If you then go to the Topics screen and select several topics and subtopics, BOTH your topics and your technology selections remain active.
  If you search on many screens, you may eventually end up many search criteria —and with no matching problems! On our site, the selections you make on different search screens progressively narrow your search. (The greater the number of search criteria selected from different screens, the fewer the problems that will match.) ()
  You can start afresh at any time by clicking the Start New Search button on any search screen.

Let’s start with some definitions:

• Habits of Mind. Habits of Mind are problem-solving strategies— evolving sets of methods, or mathematical ways of thinking. These methods of mathematics are many and varied, and they don’t have standard names in wide popular use. The choices we made for this site were intended to be practical, and we hope they will be helpful to teachers looking for good problem sets to use with their classes.

• Technology. Some of our problems benefit from or require the use of technology—including both electronic tools and non-electronic manipulatives. You can search for problems by the technology they require. Alternatively, you can find problems that don’t require any technology at all by selected "No Technology" on the Search Technology screen.

• Mathematics Background. We receive many requests from teachers who wish to search for mathematics problems at specific grade levels. However, the mathematics taught at each grade level vary with different regions of the country and different countries around the world. Instead of using grade levels, we identify different mathematical backgrounds that your students might need before they approach a problem. Each background is a combination of a level of geometry (no geometry, some geometry, completed high school geometry) and a level of algebra (no algebra, some algebra, advanced algebra, or calculus). For example, one problem might require "no geometry, some algebra".

• Duration. Duration identifies the length of the lesson required to complete the problem. For example, one problem might require "Part of a Lesson" while another requires "More Than One Day’s Work".

When you search by Habits of Mind, Technology, Mathematics Background, or Duration, we provide you with a list of criteria from which you can choose. Each criterion has a checkbox or a dash to its left (see the picture of the Search Technology screen). The dash indicates that there are no problems associated with this criterion; as we add more problems to our collection fewer criteria will display dashes. You can click one or more of the checkboxes to choose the criteria you want to use for your search. If you select more than one criterion, your search will display problems associated with any of the criteria you mark; in other words, the more criteria you check the more problems you will find. (In the jargon of search or Boolean logic, we say that selections within a screen are joined by a logical OR.)
After you’ve checked all the criteria you want, click List Selected Problems to display a list of problems that match the criteria you selected.
If you’d like to know more about our habits of mind, technologies, mathematics backgrounds, or lesson durations, see the appropriate sections on About Search Criteria. If you’d like to see a list of each of these criteria, see their respective search screens: (click the appropriate buttons on the Mathematics Problems screen).

You can enter any word or phrase into our Keywords screen to retrieve problems whose title, description (synopsis), or topics contain the word or phrase you typed. Our keyword searches match all the words or phrases you enter on the Keywords screen. For example, if you type puzzle student then you will find problems containing BOTH those words, but you will not find problems containing only the word student or only the word puzzle.
Keyword searching is a fast way to find problems if you already know they exist in our collection. Beware, however, that keyword searching can be frustrating; you can think of many more words to type than we have problems, and many keyword searches might return no problems at all. Please use keyword searching judiciously! You may wish to start exploring our site by using one of the other options and then return to keyword searching when you are more familiar with our problems. (See Combining Search Criteria.)
You should not use wildcard characters (for example, * or ?), logical operators (AND, OR, NOT), mathematical operators (+, -), parentheses, or braces in our searches. You can approximate the use of wildcards by typing portions of a word; for example, if you want to find problems containing "practice" and "practicing", type: practic and we’ll search for all problems containing that string of letters.
There are two different Keywords screens into which you can enter words or phrases: the Mathematics Problems screen and the Search Keywords screen. You should use the former when you are starting a search and the latter when you are in the middle of a search (having previously chosen other criteria) and wish to refine your selections.
After you’ve entered your keywords, click List Selected Problems to display a list of problems whose topics, synopsis, or title match your keywords.

You can search for problems by the date on which they were most recently entered or revised. Date searches enable you to find all the problems added since the last time you visited.

What happens when you combine these different search criteria? That circumstance is best explained by example. Suppose you wish to find a problem involving both estimation and a sense of number magnitude; you also wish to complete this problem in less than one lesson period. Here’s how you might approach your search:

1. Go to the Mathematics Problems screen (click the Mathematics Problems button at the top of any screen).

2. Click Topics to go to the Search Topics screen.



3. On the Search Topics screen, click the arrow next to Number to display its subtopics. Then check the subtopics "Estimation" and "Real Numbers: Representation / Magnitude / Order / Computation." Finally, click the List Selected Problems button. Our site returns a list of problems that matches any of the subtopics you selected.

4. Briefly review the list of problems to ensure you’re on the right track. Then click the Duration button to display the Search Duration screen.

5. On the Search Duration screen, check "Part of a Lesson". Then click the List Selected Problems button.

6. When you see the list of problems again, you’ll notice that the problems now meet BOTH sets of criteria. That is, the list of problems contains only those problems whose topics AND duration match your selections (fewer problems than if you’d selected only some Topics or only a Duration). (In the jargon of search or Boolean logic, we say that your Topic search criteria were joined with a logical OR, and then your Topic search criteria were joined with your Duration search criteria by a logical AND.)

Here’s a useful shortcut: When you’re combining search criteria on different screens, you don’t have to click the List Selected Problems button after you make your selections on each screen. Instead, you can go directly from one screen to another—for example, directly from Search Topics to Search Duration. (Each screen displays buttons that take you directly to other criteria-selecting screens.) Our site remembers the selections you make on each screen. When you finally click the List Selected Problems button, the problems listed match all the criteria you selected.

You can start a new search (erasing all previously-selected criteria) by clicking the Start New Search button on any search screen. Because our search criteria accumulate as you select items on each search screen (see Combining Search Criteria), you should be careful to click Start New Search anytime you want to cancel your previous searches and start with fresh selections.

Besides clicking Start New Search, most browsers will also start a new search each time you return to the Mathematics Problems screen. This behavior varies among browsers, however, so the safest way to start a new search is to click the Start New Search button.

Subsections:
Don’t Press Back To Navigate
We Remember Your Search Criteria
To Select Fewer Problems...
To Select More Problems...
To Cancel A Search...
To Go to Other Parts of this Web Site...
To View Printable (PDF) Versions of Mathematics Problems...
Set Your Web Browser’s Options For Our Site

Changes that you make on search pages may be lost if you press your browser’s Back button. In addition, you may see error messages when you press Back. Use the buttons and links within our search pages when searching for mathematics problems.

We Remember Your Search Criteria

Our site remembers your selections until you either change them or click the Start New Search button (available on any search screen). For example, suppose that on the Search Topics page, you select "Real Numbers: Representation / Magnitude / Order / Computation." If you then select "Part of a Lesson" as your lesson duration, BOTH your topics and your duration selections remain active.
If you search on many screens, you may eventually end up many search criteria —and with no matching problems! On our site, the selections you make on different search screens progressively narrow your search. (The greater the number of search criteria selected from different screens, the fewer the problems that will match.) ()
You can start afresh at any time by clicking the Start New Search button on any search screen.

To make sure that your search produces a few, well-selected mathematics problems:

• Select just a few items on any screen, or
• Select items on several different screens. The selections you make on different search screens progressively narrow your search. For example, if you visit the Search Topics page and select "Real Numbers: Representation / Magnitude / Order / Computation" (under Number) and then visit the Search Duration page and select "Part of a Lesson", then you’ll see problems that involve real numbers AND that require part of a lesson to complete (fewer problems than if you simply selected "Real Numbers: Representation / Magnitude / Order / Computation" by itself).

To broaden your search so that it produces more mathematics problems:

• Select several items on any screen, and
• Avoid selecting items on many different screens.

You can cancel a search in several different ways:

• To cancel a particular search criterion... Go to the screen that includes the criterion and uncheck it. Then click the List Selected Problems button to list problems matching your revised criteria.
• To start over... Click the Start New Search button on any screen. You will be taken to the Mathematics Problems screen, and your previous search criteria will be erased.

When you’re searching, the navigation buttons at the top of the screen change, and other areas of the Web site are not accessible directly. If you want to reach other areas of the Web site, click the Mathematics Problems button or the Home button.

We offer each of our mathematics problems in two formats:

• HTML (HyperText Markup Language). You can see these documents directly in your Web browser. (They are "plain" Web documents.) Please note! At the present time, only a few problems are available in HTML format. Eventually, all problems will be available in HTML.

• PDF (Portable Document Format). PDF documents display and print mathematics more crisply than HTML documents, and they include pagination. If you want to create handouts, use the Printable (PDF) Version of our documents.
  
  You may not be able to see PDF documents in your Web browser. To see PDF documents, you must have previously installed Adobe Acrobat Reader software on your computer. Installing and using Adobe Acrobat Reader is relatively easy. In fact, many new computers come with Adobe Acrobat Reader already installed. If your computer doesn’t already include Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can find a free copy of it, along with instructions for download and installation, at the following Adobe Web sites.
  Macintosh users: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/acrmac.htm
  Windows users: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/acrwin.htm
  
  

Important! Each Web browser handles PDF documents differently. In specific, the way that you move between PDF and other Web pages can vary. Please read the instructions below to determine how you’ll manage PDFs in your browser.

• Most Web browsers open PDFs directly; that is, they use the same window for the PDF as they do for other Web pages. You can move from the PDF to another Web page by clicking the browser’s Back button.

• Some browsers open PDFs in a new window. You can move from the PDF to another Web page by closing the new PDF window.

• Some browsers download the PDF to your computer. In that case you must locate the PDF on your hard drive and double-click to view the PDF. You can move from the PDF to another Web page by closing the PDF window.

You should enable JavaScript and cookies when you’re using our site. You may optionally wish to set your browser not to cache Web pages so that you always receive the most up-to-date list of problems when you search our site. For detailed instructions about setting these options, see our Help page.