Understand the problem. What kind of problem is it? There are three main types of problems: ‘Show that ...’ or ‘Evaluate ...’ questions, in which a c… - Terence Tao

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Understand the problem. What kind of problem is it? There are three main types of problems:
‘Show that ...’ or ‘Evaluate ...’ questions, in which a certain statement has to be proved true, or a certain expression has to be worked out;
‘Find a...’ or ‘Find all...’ questions, which requires one to find something (or everything) that satisfies certain requirements;
‘Is there a ...’ questions, which either require you to prove a statement or provide a counterexample (and thus is one of the previous two types of problem).