Should I take Precalc before taking Calc I?

TomServo
Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:18 +0000

Depends on whether you take real calc or Mickey Mouse calc, I guess.

You’ll start off learning about limits, like what happens to (x+1)/3x as x in the limit where x approaches infinity? That one’s easy, it approaches 1/3. They can get harder. Maybe it’ll be the limit where x approaches zero, which is where the derivative comes in.

The derivative is the rate of change of a function. Picture a graph of a function, like
f(x)=x^2. Now picture a particular point on the graph. Now picture a straight line that goes through that point and is also tangent to the curve (meaning it only touches the graph at that one point, like laying a ruler against a basketball). What is the slope of that particular line?

That’s all there is to calc I aka differential calculus (at least under quarters, where I took it). Maybe you’ll get into integral calc, or sequences and series.

The reason the class is called calc and analytic geometry is because of the heavy use of graphs on the xy plane. The stronger you are at these, the better. The stronger you are at the equations of a straight line (point-slope formula, slope-intercept, etc.), the better. The stronger you are at solving equations for a variable, the better. The stronger you are at simplifying expressions the better. Trig is important to calc I because, if for no other reason, the trig functions are some of the ones you will have to find the derivative of. Trig becomes WAY more important in integral calc. It’s important in math overall, but in principle you could teach basic calc without needing it. Like business calc classes, I don’t think they cover trig, which limits what they can do with integrals but hey…