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Pre-Calculus before I take it.


dstebbins

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I'm a seventeen year old junior in high school who's taking the required Algebra 2 as his third math. I need one more math, but I get a choice as to what I get to take next year. I want to take pre-calculus and then take either statistics or college algebra as an elective. I want to impress my teacher with some knowledge of the class beforehand, but I don't have the money for a "pre-calculus for dummies" book. Can anyone link me to a website where I can get a little knowledge of Calculus before I take it this August? Thanks.

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Yea, it's basically a review of algebra and geometry, so you'll probably do very well. Here's some specifics that I remember:

 

*Composition functions and how to compute them. Example of a composition function is cos x^2, since cos x is a function and x^2 is also one.

 

*learning how to graph functions by hand, and how to shift them up, down, left, right given an equation. Example: y = x^2 + 5 ... you take the basic parabola x^2, which has it's vertex at the origin, and you shift it up 5 units so that its vertex is at (0, 5)

 

* The conic sections (parabola, circle, ellipse, hyperbola) and how to graph them and what their equations are.

 

* Logranithms and exponential functions

 

*lograithmic expansion and contraction (ex: log 5 + log 7 = log 35, because 7*5 is 35 and they have the same base)

 

* basic series

 

That's mostly what comes to my mind. You won't get into any actual calculus in pre-calc...it's all just algebra and geometry that you will need to understand when you do get to calculus. If you want to learn a few things about actual calculus itself, I can give you a few starting points. I can't think of any websites off the top of my head, but I'm sure you could do a google search and find some.

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