<p>So I'm an incoming freshmen. I haven't taken calculus since junior year, and I am signed up for math 16A. Should I be reviewing before the course or will the teacher do some reviewing before (FPF student)? Can past students tell me about where does the course start or cover? I heard it's between pre-cal and calculus, but I would appreciate if someone could tell me essentially where the course start out at and where it ends.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Essentially 16A covers limits, maxima/minima, inflection/extreme pts/curve shapes of equations and sketching curves, derivatives, integration, and then typical application areas like population growth, optimum pricing, bank interest, radioactive decay, motion equations</p>
<p>Your key is to make sure you are proficient at algebraic manipulation, solving equations, basic trig - all the predecessor stuff. You will be solving problems that are compounding multiple steps and can involve some intermediate results that need to be combined down and simplified properly. </p>
<p>For example, you might be asked to differentiate (ln x)^3 e^(-3x^2) which involves several rules of differentiation including chain and product rules. Straightforward as long as your basics are solid, but plenty of room to make simple errors in the work.</p>
<p>Thanks, that was very helpful!</p>
<p>Will the class be doing a little bit of trig review or will the professor expect the students to have all the formulas memorized already walking into the class?</p>
<p>there is almost no review of prior skills, particularly not of skills for manipulating polynomials, simplifying expressions, factoring, handling logs and exponents, and of the basics of trig. </p>
<p>Often the professor or GSI will list the formula, but you might need to now that the sum of the squares of the cos and sin equal 1, for example, just to figure out how to unravel an equation to cut down unknowns in order to solve it. </p>
<p>People can flame out in this class even though they perfectly grasp every new concept of differentiation and integration, because the only way to get the grade distribution the college wants, given the hundreds of very talented and bright students taking it, is to thrown in complexity and even to require some mathematical intuition in order to answer the test questions correctly. </p>
<p>Usually it is the first midterm in courses like this that are the dash of cold water in the face, when someone thinks they are sailing along understanding everything, but ignoring that they aren’t able to handle the homework problems and cases done in class. Often the test questions can be more tricky than the homework and class examples, not easier as you might have expected from high school and AP work. </p>
<p>Also, it is common at Cal to make the exams hard and then to curve up to establish the grade distribution. Easier to take a test with an average score of 50 and adjust to yeild 20% As than to take a test with an average grade of 96 and to meaningfully spread out the grades of the students. That is another shocker, but you quickly learn that the absolute grade isn’t important (unless you get 100 out of 100 or equivalent on everything!). Its all about the relative performance to the rest of the class. Sadly, these are the basically the top students from high schools across California and very talented OOS and foreign students.</p>
<p>Not that it is consolation during the grind, but when you walk out of Cal with a diploma and a decent GPA you KNOW you worked for it and did well against world class standards. Believe me, it may not be much comfort for the next four years but it is part of the world reputation of Cal.</p>
<p>Rider, you make Math 16A sound hard 
I thought people said that it would be easy if you already took AP Calculus AB or BC in high school.</p>
<p>It depends. For many who come in with very solid backgrounds in algebra and trig, it is easy, particularly if you also have good intuition about what trick or method will remove a zero from a denominator or allow you to simplify an equation. The actual calc content is pretty easy, but as I mentioned, the problems you are assigned really expect solid fundamentals. If you were at a high school and did very well in math, someone who would score very high on the math part of the SAT, you should not have a problem. However, there are people who come in every year, having received nothing but As from their high school, who realize they don’t have the basics down to the level Cal expects. Others who come here might be amazing in many dimensions but not very skilled in math - they also may find that it is the ‘pre-requisite’ stuff that gives them problems. Most students find it easy, but enough don’t and the ones who don’t are not low intelligence, lazy or knowingly jumping in over their heads. Well, only a few are like that. Most expect this to be straightforward and are shocked to find otherwise, yet to recover during the semester they have to relearn (really they need to learn because they didn’t) big swaths of three or four years of hs math.</p>
<p>Ok, So I’ve been taking honors math classes in high school (Honors Geometry, Algebra 2, Trig/Pre-Calc) and got all A’s in those classes. Last year, I took AP Calc AB and got A’s both semesters and scored a 5 on the AP exam. I scored 660 on the SAT math section. Do you think I need to review before the first day? Will I have trouble in the class? You make it sound as scary as Math 1A, lol.</p>
<p>you’re going to be fine ^^</p>
<p>stevenboi27 - you are most likely going to be one of the A earners in the class.</p>
<p>The material itself you will find easy. The tests can be tricky but I suspect you will not have any problem with them. </p>
<p>However, never ‘turn your back’ on a class at Cal. Don’t take it for granted you will do well. Even if you master the material and do great on the tests, it comes down to the curve and your competition. The next Stephen Hawking or Alan Turing or Carl Gauss or Elizabeth Blackburn or Robert Noyce could be in your class, ruining the curve for you.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that I am the best at math. The only reason that I did well in my math classes in the past was because I studied like crazy. I memorized formulas and concepts. I do not like problems which require you to look beyond the memorization/basic concepts. Those problems which you have to really think about like Physics word problems are what I hate the most :(. Since this is Cal, I assume that I will be seeing a lot of these critical thinking problems Is this correct?</p>
<p>Depends on the professor, but the midterms and finals are usually critical-thinking problems.</p>