When I was a kid in primary school, one thing the system was obsessed about the skill of solving mathematical problems in your head, without writing. They thought this increased solving speed and thus, multiple choice test performance. (this wasn't US or Europe so Western-centric interpretations of this story won't work well).
The book we used for that had a title that would translate to "problems from the mind" or "mental problems" for short.
@cynaq@actuallyautistic In school, I was taught 'mental arithmetic', and also maths that was written down. I think the intention was that we need to be able to do simple maths sums without the need for a calculator, like when you're in a shop, paying for goods.
I did that all the time as a kid, but my instructors hated that when I translated my processes to long-form, they didn't match the processes they were instructing us to follow to determine the answers. So, I'd ace every exam that only required answers and fail every assignment that wanted shown work. Their processes made no sense to me, like getting lost on weird roads as my brain screamed, "Cut through the field RIGHT HERE."
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