Calculus final? OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

May 5, 2012 10:57 AM

Please help me prepare for my Calculus I final. Difficulty: no trig.

I've been unsuccessfully searching in the internet for practice finals and other such things I can use to prepare, but I'm having no luck. I bought two books for Calculus that are supposed to simplify it, but since we use no trig in this class they just muddle the waters for me. Please help me look for materials I can use to prep. Final is next Wednesday so I have some time.

If it helps, the book we use for class is Calculus for Business, Economics, Life Sciences and Social Sciences, 12th ed, by Barnett.

posted by cobain_angel to Education (8 answers total)

Khan Academy?
posted by spinifex23 at 11:01 AM on May 5, 2012

Best answer: The book Business Calculus Demystified by Rhonda Huettenmueller was a lifesaver for me when I took business calculus. No trig coverage IIRC. It has practice problems with solutions at the end of each chapter, plus a final exam with solutions. I found it at my local library, or you can download it for Kindle for about $10.

Here is an online resource that might also help: Links to Business Calculus finals with solutions at austinmathtutor.com. When you Google for practice finals, it might help to search for business calculus or calculus for social sciences instead of just calculus. Also, maybe throw some parameters into your search phrase like filetype:PDF or site:edu. This will often lead to materials that instructors teaching courses similar to yours have posted for their students.

Good luck on your exam!
posted by madforplaid at 11:36 AM on May 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Have you tried Rapid Learning Center? When I was cramming for my Calculus BC exam back in the day, I found their videos super helpful.
posted by lotusmish at 12:21 PM on May 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Can you clarify what you mean by "no trig"? Are you trying to say that you didn't learn facts like sin'(x) = cos(x) and the various values of sin(x) and cos(x) on a unit circle? Because apart from this, most of the rest of basic calculus just boils down to statements about polynomials.
posted by Nomyte at 12:42 PM on May 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: For some reason this class does not do trigonometry in it at all, no no sin or cos or tan or anything like that. I know it boils down to statements about polynomials, but I am having trouble remembering all of those statements.
posted by cobain_angel at 4:42 PM on May 5, 2012

Yea, just skip over any problem with a trig function... not that hard. But, a good fraction of sample problems you find might involve trig functions, so that could significantly decrease the amount of questions available?
posted by imagineerit at 7:14 PM on May 5, 2012

I would recommend checking out any tutoring options that your school might have. I work as a calc tutor at the library at my school, and am constantly surprised by peoples reactions when I tell them this. Its usually somewhere on the line of, "holy crap, there is free math tutoring on campus!? that would have helped me so much if I had known about it for finals!"
posted by KeSetAffinityThread at 9:43 AM on May 6, 2012

Response by poster: Finals were over a few weeks ago, and the book suggested by madforplaid was EXCELLENT to help me prepare. I did great in the test! Thanks, everyone.
posted by cobain_angel at 3:35 PM on May 27, 2012