My teaching experience has been largely the opposite. I often find students in a situation where they have a large equation, but don't know where to start in s

My teaching experience has been largely the opposite. I often find students in a situation where they have a large equation, but don't know where to start in solving it. For instance, given ((3+7)*x)/(3+7+x) = 5 They'd grow confused on how to start. Should they combine the 3 and 7 in the numerator? In the denominator? Or should the multiply both sides by (3+7+x)? Of course, it doesn't matter which one they choose. Any of those will get them a step closer to solving the problem. However, since they don't have the mathematics confidence to just play with the problem, they'll become paralyzed with the various, equally good options. On the other hand, if they were more comfortable with the symbolic manipulation parts, they'd spend less time worrying about trivialities and more time focusing on parallel resistors.