Those cheat sheets baffle me. I cannot imagine that someone who needs help remembering, to pick a few examples, that
a^m a^n = a^(m+n)
or that
y = mx + b
is a line will be able to use those facts in a real-world problem, with the cheat sheet in hand.
For those who used these and found them useful: did you really use them as cheat sheets, that is, to look up things while working on a problem, or did you use them more as a checklist before entering an exam, to check that you remembered most of them?
I suggest big parts of Paul's Online Notes to students who need some brush-up or remediation. When I was teaching college precalc, for instance, people usually had a reasonable grasp of y=mx+b but difficulties with exponentiation were almost universal. Some of these "cheat sheets" are useful for such students just to tape above their workspace so that while working through the rote mechanical practice problems they must do they can use the "cheat sheet" as a checklist while they work.
The review of complex numbers, on the other hand (not a cheat sheet but a condensed review) I assign to some masters' students who have not used complex numbers for 2 years and need to recall what they once learned. There it's just a concise but reasonably comprehensive refresher list.
That makes waaay more sense to me; the first uses them more as training wheels than as cheat sheet; the second is more akin to the "check that I know it" that I envisioned. Thanks.
For those who used these and found them useful: did you really use them as cheat sheets, that is, to look up things while working on a problem, or did you use them more as a checklist before entering an exam, to check that you remembered most of them?