Integral Banana!!!
Okay, this week was the beginning of Chapter 6. It's almost a waste doing spiraling tests in Calc, because every new concept is practically a compilation of everything we've ever learned. Chapter 6 is a bit of a throwback to the beginning of antiderivatives and u substitution, and the catchup was easier than I thought.
There are a couple things I'm having trouble keeping straight, however. Firstly, It's really hard for me to recognize special circumstances. There is the whole deal with the natural-log/absolute value-set of new rules, which I have to add to my old bank of knowledge, like the derivatives of trigonometric functions and I have a feeling that I'll have to deal with inverses again soon. I could just write them all down, but it's getting kind of tedious having to look up all of the functions every time.
Secondly, I'm a little more than sick of mixing up u, du, dx, x, and c. Calculus really is a blitz of variables, and I think my brain misses the days of good ol' linear functions. I just have to wrap my head around the actual MEANING of each of the variables. Maybe the letters will seem more understandable with a practical meaning.
However, this chapter is MUCH more easy to understand than Chapter 5. There's something a bit homey about u-substitution, and it's just algebra-y enough for me not to panic. I'm not sure about this DOT business, though. I'll have to be won over. Who knows, maybe in two months I'll be longing for the days of the simple dot plotting.
Until next week,
Mia
Okay, this week was the beginning of Chapter 6. It's almost a waste doing spiraling tests in Calc, because every new concept is practically a compilation of everything we've ever learned. Chapter 6 is a bit of a throwback to the beginning of antiderivatives and u substitution, and the catchup was easier than I thought.
There are a couple things I'm having trouble keeping straight, however. Firstly, It's really hard for me to recognize special circumstances. There is the whole deal with the natural-log/absolute value-set of new rules, which I have to add to my old bank of knowledge, like the derivatives of trigonometric functions and I have a feeling that I'll have to deal with inverses again soon. I could just write them all down, but it's getting kind of tedious having to look up all of the functions every time.
Secondly, I'm a little more than sick of mixing up u, du, dx, x, and c. Calculus really is a blitz of variables, and I think my brain misses the days of good ol' linear functions. I just have to wrap my head around the actual MEANING of each of the variables. Maybe the letters will seem more understandable with a practical meaning.
However, this chapter is MUCH more easy to understand than Chapter 5. There's something a bit homey about u-substitution, and it's just algebra-y enough for me not to panic. I'm not sure about this DOT business, though. I'll have to be won over. Who knows, maybe in two months I'll be longing for the days of the simple dot plotting.
Until next week,
Mia