<p>^^^^^^^^^^^^^Above.......So any books or anything I can pick up at barnes and nobles that would help me go over the basic algebra, geometry, trig and pre-calc that I should know to do well in calc? Any help is appreciated.</p>
<p>I don't know any specific books. Just review your old school notes.</p>
<p>l burned them at my graduation party, no joke, it was a homework burning</p>
<p>Well then, lol, that's what you get for burning paper. You should have recycled ;).</p>
<p>I guess you can get your calculus textbook early and look over the first chapter which is usually review of pre-cal material.</p>
<p>I can't give you a specific book (ACT/SAT prep doesn't cover any of this, and AP Calc BC might be too in depth) but I can give you a partial list of things that I found important in Calc.</p>
<p>1) TRIG, TRIG and more TRIG!!! Know the unit circle!!!, know how to graph at minimum the sin, cos and tan functions. Know how to apply various transformations to them (ie phase shift, translation, scale change, etc.) and just get comfortable using trig to model situations.</p>
<p>2) Summation Theory </p>
<p>3) Limits!!! very important!!! Know the basics, you will work with them all the time and lean much more.</p>
<p>4) Properties of various functions ie. log(x<em>y)= log(x)+log(y), (a^x)^y=a^(x</em>y) etc...</p>
<p>5) Know what the bell curve (also called the normal curve) is. </p>
<p>6) Know what a derivative is, probably also the definition too
lim h->0 (f(x+h)-f(x))/h or lim x->a (f(x)-f(a))/(x-a)<br>
sorry that's not easy to follow...
and also probably how to take the derivative of a polynomial (power rule)</p>
<p>7) Know what a Riemann Sum is. Sorry, I can't type that one clearly.</p>
<p>8) Have a vague idea of what an integral is (don't worry about this definition as it's rather messy and will be made clear during the course)</p>
<p>9) Know that the fundamental Therom of Calculus relates the derivative and integral as inverses. (This is big in the long run but don't worry too much about it right now)</p>
<p>10) Be comfortable doing multi-step, complicated (read page long) algebraic manipulations. A good way to practice these is expanding sigmas. If you can try to prove the formula for the sum integers from 1 to n
sigma i(i going from 1 to n) = 1+2+3+3...(n-1)+n = n(n+1)/2
and then if you want something harder the sum of the squares of integers from 1 through n
sigma i^2(i going from 1 to n) = 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + 4^2+...+(n-1)^2 + n^2 = n(n+1)(2n+1)/6
(These two problems are taken directly from the first meeting of my Calc I class)</p>
<p>if you can follow most of this and do either of those last two derivations you should be in good shape. I hope you aren't confused by the improvised notations. On second thought with the books, maybe calc or trig for dummies if there is a such thing? Or possibly a study guide for the SAT II Math level 2 test?</p>
<p>Let me know if this helps
AJS</p>
<p>get yourself a case of high life and drink till you think that you know everything</p>
<p>The thing is I can barely remember any of the stuff I learned in pre-calc, and I hated graphing functions in trig. Would it be smarter for me to take pre-calc, or just go ahead take calc and get it over with. My plan is only to take 1 semester of math in college, and that ends at calc. Should I just take the class and study my a$$ off, or what? Suggestions?</p>
<p>Calculus for Dummies is actually a good review book...it covers Trig and then Calc through Series Tests.</p>
<p>Check out the SAT/ACT review section and Barnes and Noble and the like. They often have more than just the basics.</p>
<p>So is it better than for me just to get calc over with? (Even though I can't remember most of my calc.) I have about a little over 3 weeks left till school starts and my goal is to review about an hour each day going through calc review books. I want to be at least at 50 percent efficiency.</p>
<p>to be honest, a lot of pre-calc stuff is only tangentially useful in calculus. stuff like sine/cosine/tangent is obviously useful information but you actually don't need to remember, for example, that sin = opposite/hypotenuse for calculus.</p>
<p>that said, the best idea is to get a calculus textbook (I actually bought one on Amazon.com before AP Calc, but not all of us are strange like that :)) and read the first 2 or 3 chapters. there is always a "review" section (which you should pay close attention to) and the section on "limits" is **essential<a href="I%20would%20suggest%20to%20all%20future%20calculus%20students%20that%20learning%20this%20before%20school%20starts%20is%20very%20very%20useful">/b</a>. if you are an overachiever, I would stop at the chain rule - the stuff after that gets messy (ignore the person who said you should study about Riemann sums and stuff - I still don't quite understand those and I'm a sophomore math major).</p>
<p>thank you ugen64 that as very helpful, i definitely am going to get a book and review</p>