I was working with one of my MBA students to come up with a strategy for a test she had to pass to get her degree. She had previously failed this exam and figured the best strategy was to work more problems because the quantitative part of the test is what did her in. I told her that rather than working more problems she should put together a set of several problems that she knew would cover every type of problem that could be on the exam. She didn’t understand how identifying problems could be more important than working problems correctly.

“Have you ever seen the movie, The Karate Kid,” I asked her.

“Sure,” she replied.

“Do you remember when Ralph Machio’s character, Daniel, met Pat Morita’s character, Miyagi? What did Miyagi tell Daniel to do?”

“That was the best part of the movie! He told him to put wax on junked cars and to polish them – ‘Wax on – Wax off’,” she said demonstrating the process with her hands.

“That’s exactly right. Wax on – Wax off was the process Daniel needed to develop important defensive skills in karate even though he didn’t know it at first. Assembling a set of problems to work by correctly identifying and classifying each one is the most important step in learning how to solve any problem,” I said. “Because, if you can’t figure out what kind of problem it is, you surely can’t work it correctly. Wax on – Wax off. In the movie, doing this helped Daniel prepare to be successful in his karate matches, assembling your problem set will help you be prepared for whatever problems will be on the test next time,  even if it’s not obvious to you now.”

The smile on her face told me that she did know now. She knew the key to doing better on the test because identifying problems correctly was what she had trouble doing.

“Thanks so much, Dr. Sawyer, this has been a big help,” she said as she left my office, “I’ll remember, ’Wax on – Wax off.’”