it might give you the impression that you understand something when in fact you only learned how to follow a specific formula. Learning to follow the specific

it might give you the impression that you understand something when in fact you only learned how to follow a specific formula. Learning to follow the specific formula by rote is a good thing. For example you really should know your multiplication table up to 10 basically by heart. And the algorithms for doing basic arithmetic on large numbers needs to be practiced until you don't have to think about them. As should the algorithms for simple algebraic manipulation. If you try to move on without having those and similar skills under control you will never get to the understanding part of mathematics since you'll spend all your time dealing with the mechanics of arithmetic. What you need in math is lots of unique problems to solve, not repetition of the same equation with different constants. Repetition of the same problem with different constants is how you learn to spot patterns and develop techniques you can build upon. Like if you find that f(x)=7, f(3x)=21, f(5x)=35, f(9x)=63 then you might spot a pattern that you can explore and that will make it really easy to solve the rest of the problems.