<p>I messed up the title.</p>
<p>What I meant was:</p>
<p>What concepts on Barron's book aren't on Math II?</p>
<p>Any help here?</p>
<p>I am not sure but Barrons is definately over preparation and probably way harder..I dont think binomial theorem ever comes.. Than there is vectors and geometry chapter which is messed up too</p>
<p>You don't really have to know in detail the ten "facts useful in solving polynomial equations" in section 2.4. It's good to know the basic ones, but the more complex ones (ie: #8) will never show up. </p>
<p>In section 3.5, it's a good idea to know all the trig identities, just in case you get an odd question on the test, but chances are most of them are useless.</p>
<p>It goes into way too much detain in section 4.1. You don't have to know all the nonsense about latus rectums and conjugate axes, etc. Know the basic equations for conic sections like the back of your hand, how to shift them, and maybe the bit about eccentricity, etc.</p>
<p>I have a feeling the greatest integer function is never tested in the way that Barron's presents it in section 4.4, example 3. </p>
<p>The second part of section 4.7 is the least useful part of the entire book. Starting with Since the complex number a + bi can be represented... on page 81, and going all the way until example 4, the information is a poison upon the brain of anybody studying for math II. It's relatively complicated, hard to remember, and entirely superfluous. It's interesting, but not worth studying for the purpose of the exam.</p>
<p>In section 5.3, Barron's works a little with dependent events. However, the math II exam only uses independent events, so omit those examples. When I took the exam, I found the questions on probablity/permutations/combinations to be incredibly simple...Barron's is harder than I saw, but it's worth doing on the off chance you get some really hard questions. </p>
<p>The first part of section 5.5 (Transformations:) is strange. Just know the standard way to shift and stretch functions and skip this over.</p>
<p>The section on logic (5.7) is way too symbol-oriented. All you have to know for the exam is the implication and the other statements associated with it (ie: the contrapositive is always true when the statement is true and vice versa).</p>
<p>Section 5.9 is nice on the whole, though rather ecclectic...if you haven't done it before, don't worry about example 7. </p>
<p>I believe that's everything that absolutely won't show up on the exam. But remember that in practically every section Barron's is too analytic, too theoretical...too hard. It can get very, very frustrating working through the practice exams and winding up with scores far lower than your target range. Just don't take them too seriously. </p>
<p>Just something I noticed in the exam: it tested (more than Barron's does) your ability to simply be good at math on the spot. Several questions needed no specific preparation, but were still fairly difficult because of the thought process required. </p>
<p>Good luck studying!</p>
<p>Wow skatearabia! indepth analysis. Looks like who have gone into more detail than Barrons actually does. Nice analysis. Very Helpful</p>
<p>Wow, thanks guys. This is exactly what I was looking for, along with the TI-89 SAT II Math thread, all within a few rows of each other in this forum.</p>
<p>I love CC.</p>
<p>Great post, skatearabia.</p>
<p>When I took it the couple problems I chose not to answer were some of the extremely tough binomial/trigonometric equations. I don't really know how to explain them, but its something along the lines of:</p>
<p>if point x = (a, 1)</p>
<p>and f(x) = a^2 * 2a + 18</p>
<p>what is a</p>
<p>not sure if that makes any sense, best I can come up with on the spot (btw, don't try to answer it, its just random crap)</p>