Gosh, I forgot to do my blog on time again this week. I need to start getting on the ball. Anyway, this week we did more ap tests. In addition to the two multiple choice portions we usually take every Monday and Tuesday, we took a free response portion. The free response portion was a slope field question. We were given one similar to it to study from prior to the test on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday we were given first the non calculator portion and second the calculator portion. These two tests were from a different book, so we had to do corrections on them. We have to do corrections on all of them really, but this time we are getting points for the corrections.
On the non calculator portion, I thought I did well and answered a few more questions than normal. I thought I would get a perfect, but the class average was higher and I made stupid mistakes. It was the same for the calculator portion.
Upon making my corrections, I’ve learned a few things:
Normal line
How not to screw up a second derivative including a chain rule
And how useful my calculator can be on the calculator portion if I would just use it
Ok, for a normal line, I remembered I had to use the same formula for tangent line. I also remembered that in the tangent line formula, the slope given by the derivative was a perpendicular slope. A normal line is a line with the same slope, but I forgot to take the negative reciprocal of the slope given. This is all you do for a normal line.
Ok, for a chain rule with multiple derivatives. Don’t forget to bring the exponent to the front, subtract one from it, then multiply it by the inside then the derivative of the inside. I always forget the fourth step.
When doing the calculator portion, they let you have a calculator for a reason. Your calculator can help you out with everything on the test. So use it.
The problem I have is I remember B-rob saying something about when a limit is undefined it is actually going to infinity? I put this for two tests and got it wrong. Am I making something up here?
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Mamie,
ReplyDeleteYou are not making this up.... However, context is important. If AFTER you have factored and cancelled. If you plug in and get a number over 0 then you have an asymptote at that value. This means that your limit is either infinity, -infinity or DNE because there is an asymptote. The problem is on the tests you aren't factoring and canceling. Just getting 0 in the bottom does not indicate that the limit is infinity.