Any tips for success in college math? I am taking precalculus right now and i aced it in high school but in college it seems way different. Any advice?

Question

zepdrix · Answer

How long has it been since you've taken algebra?
Because tons of little algebra tricks come up over and over again.
If you're rusty in simplifying thing you'll really want to go over stuff like:
Multiplying Conjugates, Factoring, Logarithms, Multiplying exponentials, etc..

Also, make sure you take advantage of any tutoring your school offers. Those people usually know their stuff. ^^

Make sure you do the homework! Try to find some good websites to help you also. :)
Meetyourbrain has textbook solutions for some books, might be worth seeing if yours is on there.

anonymous · Answer

My school has a free tutoring program you just always have to wait forever to get help.. im pretty bad at simplifying and word problems really stump me.  If im struggling with precalc will i die in calculus??

zepdrix · Answer

No.
Precalc has to do with a lot of the technique. Messy problems that you're trying to simplify.

You REALLY owe it to yourself to hop on youtube and get an understanding of derivatives. It's not a difficult concept, but it takes a little while for it to really sink in.
After you learn the fundamentals, the learn about things like:
The product rule, The chain rule, The quotient rule.

Finding solutions to problems like that involve some tricky steps that really take practice to get down right, so give yourself as much time to prepare as possible.

You'll likely have trouble on your first test in calculus, it revisits a lot of old tricks of the trade.  And it introduces Limits, which are not the most fun concept.
After the first couple chapters it gets really fun though. :)

anonymous · Answer

so if i learn some calculus will it make things in precalculus much easier?

zepdrix · Answer

Mmmmmmm no prolly not :D so don't worry about it too much, heh.
Near the end of precalculus you might do a little work with limits, but it's not worth looking into early, since they're boring and dumb. XD