I am having a hard time re drawing this ckt to figure it out and i'm also having trouble seeing what resistors are in parallel...ANY kind of help would be greatly appreciated...here is a picture of the circuit.

 

hint: start in the upper right hand corner

 

R2 and R6 are in series. Then they are in parallel with R5, which is then in series with R8, which is then in parallel with R4, which is then in series with R1, which is then parallel with R3, which is then in series with R7.

 

Ok so R2 and R6 are in series but are they both in parallel to 4 5 and 8? I cant even figure out which resistors are in parallel and i think that's whats getting me. If i had some kind of idea then i could at least re-draw it.

 

When you have 2 resistors connected in a line with only 1 endpoint in common, they are in series. When they have 2 endpoints in common, they are in parallel. Think of them as straws, and air flowing through them is electrical current. If you would take a straw and attach another one on the end of that straw, they would be in series. (It would be harder to blow air through, which also means less electrical flow). Now if you took that straw and put it beside the other one and blew into it, it would be easier because you have a larger area for the air to go. Same translates to electricity.

So just picture the current flowing through the circuit and say to yourself, can it go in a straight path? Or can it split and some current go one way and some the other. The straight path is series and the split path is parallel.

 

Ok that was a good explanation and it makes it kind of easier to see what's going on. Thanks for the time you took to explain this all I really appreciated.