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I think it's well accepted that doing exercises is not only the most effective, but maybe the only effective approach when learning quantitative skills.

But what do you do with the tons of exercises you've done? Is it worth putting them in $\LaTeX$ and saving for posterity? Does it make any difference? If I've done most of the exercises of a given textbook, I've obviously trained myself, so is it ok to now throw the solutions in the thrash?

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  • $\begingroup$ Please see good subjective, bad subjective $\endgroup$ – Jackozee Hakkiuz Oct 21 '20 at 21:48
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    $\begingroup$ I would say it depends if you think you'll return to them at some point , but you are surely not doing so for the greatest part of them, or if you think they are beautiful ! So for most of them it's probably useless ( maybe a better idea is keeping the book if you think it's useful for reference or you like its exercises!) $\endgroup$ – Tortar Oct 21 '20 at 22:08
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    $\begingroup$ I'd say its worthwhile for the "really good" exercises. It can be helpful for solidifying the results, it also allows you to easily go back to earlier / mid book exercises and prove them in a streamlined way with more advanced machinery... and sometimes after finishing the book (and perhaps a sequel or two on the subject) you can do the reverse-- find sophisticated ways to wield early simple results to prove supposedly more general/advanced machinery. There's some Polya ideas lurking underneath this. Bonus: you can use/adapt your digital archived answers to help others on this site. $\endgroup$ – user8675309 Oct 21 '20 at 22:38
  • $\begingroup$ Latex, as discussed at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX is often the software of choice, here. However, there are other (free) software packages available, that may have a smaller learning curve. Personally, I use Latex, and would not consider using anything else. Along with the question of whether your work is worth preserving, is the question of how much trouble it is to learn the software, and then use it to preserve your work. Personally, re saved math work, I am completely paperless --> Latex'd. $\endgroup$ – user2661923 Oct 22 '20 at 0:31
  • $\begingroup$ I agree it's worth it for the really good ones. Also it's good for the ones that you struggled with particularly, or involved some trick. I've found it's useful to go through some of these after some time away from them, i often find better ways to solve these problems or errors in my original solutions. $\endgroup$ – MONODA43 Oct 22 '20 at 1:57
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Archiving solutions is like archiving workouts.

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  • $\begingroup$ Coincise and true! :D +1 $\endgroup$ – Tortar Oct 21 '20 at 22:04

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