<p>Hey. I am entering McGill as a U0 student, however I feel that I can skip a few U0 courses by taking McGill's placement exams. I know most of Calculus 1 and 2, but looking at their exams, I have never heard of things such as cosh(x) and tanh(x) and Intermediate Value Theorem, but I can still pass most the exam because I know most of them. It's these little things that might appear somewhere in more advanced courses with me having no idea about them. And I really wanna start advanced courses ASAP instead of having to repeat things I've already done.</p>
<p>So, do you think I should just try to pass the placement exams even though I might skip a few things in the process? Or should I take these courses just for small details like these?</p>
<p>cosh, sinh and tanh are hyperbolic cosine, sine and tangent. But they are not a big deal (really, it’s just sinh(x) = (exp(x)-exp(-x))/2, cosh(x) = (exp(x)+exp(-x))/2; you can define cos and sin similarly with complex numbers).</p>
<p>Take the placement tests if you must, but I would advise against taking MAT 150 and MAT 151 if that’s what the placement results tell you, instead of MAT 140, MAT 141 and MAT 222. The two sets are equivalent (calculus 1, 2 and 3, either over 2 or 3 courses), but the slower route assumes no prior knowledge of calculus, while MAT 150-151 is intensive, and most student have seen some calculus but not well enough to be prepared for the exams. They don’t pay enough attention at the beginning because they think they know the stuff, bomb the midterm and when they finally get to the “new material” they realize how intensive the courses are, and try to catch up for the rest of the semester. A number of students will end up doing 150, get burned, follow with 141 and 222 instead. It’s not true for all students of course, but at least you are warned. Many students take these courses too lightly at first.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for that reply! It’s helpful. But if I can pass the exams, I think I can just be exempted from Math 140 and 141 and instead start U1 math courses like calculus 3. I’m in engineering, so the 3rd U0 course is MATH 133 not 222. It’s Linear Algebra and Geometry not calc 3. Are the hyperbolic functions actually used in upper level courses or are they meaningless?</p>