post 5

Another week down in calculus and it is not getting any easier. Mainly we remained working with the first and second derivative tests. The only thing that was new was justifications. Justifications are where you explain what you did to get the answer you got. The main things that are used are the definitions such as concave up, concave down, increasing, decreasing, etc. An example of a justification is of the derivative of sinx+cosx. You get cosx-sinx as your derivative. The justification is that the derivative formulas were used to get the derivative. Also we kept working with the second derivative test. This test deals with concave up, concave down, and points of inflection. But this can only be done after the first derivative test has been done. And negative slope, positive slope, horizontal tangent, and zero of derivative are used in the first derivative test. Another thing is we started have to look at old notes and limits were a part of that. And limits are not complicated at all especially if the highest exponents are the same on the top and bottom because the limit of that is the top coefficient over the bottom coefficient.

But I do not understand how to differentiate. I read the notes and try to understand it but I just can not grasp it fully. Also I am fuzzy on exactly how to get the horizontal tangent of an equation. I mean I kind of remember I just do not remember everything. But if someone can help me before tomorrow that would be great but if not i will try to figure it out.