Getting faster at mental math is a training problem, not a talent problem. The same two levers that build any skill — the right difficulty and consistent short practice — apply here too. This guide is the practical version: what to actually do, this week.
If every answer feels obvious, the level is too easy to build anything. If you're guessing, it's too hard to learn from. The sweet spot is a level where you're right most of the time but occasionally miss — that's where speed actually improves.
Math Games' Stats page shows your accuracy for exactly this reason: if you're above 95%, move up a level; if you're below 75%, drop one.
Most people aren't slow at everything — they're slow at one thing, usually division or subtraction with borrowing, and it drags down their overall feel for the whole game.
Check accuracy by operation on your Stats page. If division is the outlier, spend two or three rounds on it deliberately, rather than hoping it improves as a side effect of general practice.
Five minutes today, five tomorrow, five the day after beats one 15-minute session, even though the single session feels more thorough at the time. This is one of the more consistently replicated findings in learning research — spacing practice out produces stronger long-term recall than massing it together, even when the total time spent is identical.
That's the whole reason Math Games tracks a weekly goal instead of a single best score: the goal is showing up on five different days, not grinding for an hour once.