2.3

reflective- Interpreting a derivative can be used in common life things, such as, building a house. One will be able to measure its cost divided by a measured area.

difficult- I understood everything because derivatives were heavily covered in my calculus course last year

2.2

reflective-since there are numerous variations of a derivative that u can get, such as, 1st derivative, 2nd, 3rd, etc, is there a certain number derivative that can not be derived?

difficult-i have a difficult time grasping exactly how to find the graph of f'(x).

2.1

reflective- Finding the instantaneous rate of change is prominent in several fields, especially those involved with aerial objects, such as those in NASA.

difficult- Personally, it is more difficult to estimate the derivative of a function graphically than it is numerically. Drawing graphs require one to know what a function looks like by just reading the function, which may result in confusing one type of graph of a function for another.

9.2

reflective- Contour diagrams are widely used to visualize a variety of maps (topographical, geographical, temperature). Through this, one can determine a variety of things such as mountain peaks.

difficult- I didnt quite understand the diagram of a pass between two mountains. I didn't see how the space in the middle symbolizes a pass btw 2 mountains, since it looks more like there are 4 mountains if u follow the diagram for a mountain peak in 9.9

9.1

reflective- Investigating the functions fo two variables are quite important, especially when dealing with science. One can learn more about a certain drug and how it reacts with a human body by calculating the concentration of a certain drug-the amount in the drug and the time since the drug was taken.

difficult- I don't quite understand where the "5-x" comes from in the formula C= f(x,t)=te^-t(5-x).

1.10

reflective- sine and cosine are two of the most vital and prominent trigonometric functions in calculus. All other trig functions can be expressed in terms of them. It is interesting how the simplest trig functions are the most crucial in this subject.

difficult- I did not find anything in this reading difficult because i previously studied it in my calculus course last year.

1.7

Reflective- Exponential growth and decay is a very important mathematical application because it is based on the change in nature. In a time when immigration is such a critical subject in modern United States politics, it is key to understand the change in legal and illegal immigrant population. By understanding what the initial quantity and continuous growth is, we may begin to assert such a task.

Difficult- What was difficult for me was grasping the concepts dealing with the equations involving present and future values because there were numerous different applications to grasp.

1.5 & 1.6

One thing that I tend to get mixed up are the properties of the natural logarithm in section 1.6, specifically, ln (AB) and ln (A/B). I just have to remember that ln (AB) = ln A + ln B and ln (A/B) = ln A - ln B, and not the other way around.

1.1 + 1.8

I'm having some issues answering question # 37 in 1.8. In the first part it asks u to distinguish the signs, but I dont know the exact reasons why A and B are both positive and C is negative, except for the fact that Q can't be negative. This means that only C can be negative because its an exponent. I was just wondering what the specifics for that question were.

9/6/07

The functions in sections 1.1 and 1.8 were not too difficult to understand. I guess one thing to watch out for when dealing with shifted graphs is to make sure that you calculate the function as a whole. In other words watch out to see if the graph is either
y=f(x)+k or y=f(x-k).

First Post

1. Henry Cardenas
2. Ist Year
3. Intended Latin American Studies major
4. AP Calculus BC (High School)
5. (Worst) My discomfort with numbers
6. (Best) The ability to solve problems when I am familiar with the steps.
7. I am taking this class because I want to get my math requirement out of the way.
8. I hope to leave this class with two things: 1. an open perspective on math and 2. the freedom to say that math isn't that bad.
9. The worst math teacher I ever had was last year in my calc class. She was "old school" so quizzes and 4 tests in the semester made up our grade, and she refused to be lenient. Not only were the tests extremely difficult at times, but sometimes we would have to do long problems in a very short period of time. The quizzes were taken from similar problems we have done for homework and in class, but the tests had problems we've never seen before. We were supposed to "think outside the box," which was kind of difficult when you're stressing about time and the test in general. Yeah, not a good time last year...
10. To be frank, I have had a pretty bad record of math teachers. I'm hoping this year will be different.