<p>But how does one study if the book consists of typical cookie cutter problems? I faced this problem before. I think in my first calculus class. My teacher used the Stewart book. This book is so easy. I can do almost all problems in the book without thinking. However when I face the exam, all the problems are different. So they were much harder. If someone does a 100 differentiation problems they still wouldn't be able to solve a strange tangent line problem. The only reason I got an A is because everyone failed and my teacher curved.</p>
<p>Go to the library, find a harder book.</p>
<p>@student14x: the book is easy 'cause you haven't carefully read and done all of the materials it covers. My instructor used Stewart book, and Cal professors also use it for calculus classes. Have you ever tried to read through and do the proofs of the theorems in this book? They are not easy as you think. Besides, most of the last problems in any section are pretty tough. Definitions and theorems are extremely important, and in community college they don't teach you that. The thing is that most community colleges, CSU, and UCs use the same books for math courses, but what different is how deep the subject will be covered. For instances, UCD, UCLA, UCB, CSUS, CSUSJ, CSUN, etc use Linear Algebra 4th edition by Friedberg for the upper division linear algebra class, but at CSUs the professors assign pretty basic homework problems while at UCs the professors assign some killer problems in the book and often assign homework worksheets that they make.</p>
<p>I guess is was exaggerating a bit. While the Stewart isn't a complete cake-walk. I can still say that it is pretty mechanical. For instance, a section on integration will probably consist of about 50 problems. Of those 50 problems maybe 40-45 will be standard integrals, you know basic computations. Then 5-10 of the problems will be applications and proofs that forces you to think. The problem with that is if someone has a hard teacher, they won't get enough practice. How can doing ~10 hard problems possibly prepare someone for that killer exam? One of my math teachers actually gave the hardest question from a section on a exam. Its not fair because the students are only given one chance to solve a problem of that caliber on an homework assignment. But I guess the homework sheets you mentioned takes care of that.</p>
<p>"One of my math teachers actually gave the hardest question from a section on a exam. Its not fair because the students are only given one chance to solve a problem of that caliber on an homework assignment. But I guess the homework sheets you mentioned takes care of that."</p>
<p>That's not too bad considering if you spent the time doing extra problems from the book, you would have been able to do it on the exam. I don't think there are any math professors at Cal who actually put homework problems straight from the book on exams.</p>
<p>To study for a math exam here, based on my limited experiences, you have to learn the material first then do a ton of problems. By learning the material, I don't mean learning what to do when you encounter a specific problem; I mean understanding why and how a theorem/equation works. A good way is to read the proof and make notes on the side about why each step is there. To assess if you really know the problem, try doing the proof on your own. We had a oral exam on 10 proofs in Math 1B. I'm glad I was forced to do this, because I understood the material much more in depth.</p>
<p>If you need extra help, you can always go to the professor's office hour.</p>
<p>My problem is that I freeze every time I see a problem that I don't know how to solve. Then I would have to resort to a solution manual or teacher or help. But by doing that I usually find that I've learned nothing at all. Since the problem was solved for me. Sometimes I would try to solve a problem all by myself, but it would be very time consuming to go through all the hard questions(even though there aren't that many) like that. I usually just give up after 10 min.</p>