Precal Blog

Really the only thing that came up in class worth mentioning is that although we have spent the last week on logarithms we spent twice that amount of time on other functions. This means that the test will reflect that by being about two-thirds 7-2, 7-3 and about one-third logarithms. I plan on having each learning target represented.

My only other advice is that you don’t memorize, but you use what you know about the concepts to reason through the problems. Memory can fail you and your problem solving skills are definately more reliable.

So, if King Kong has the same dimensions as a normal ape but is 10 times taller, how would his weight compare to that of a normal gorilla? Say a normal gorilla weighs 500 pounds. (Also assume the weights of similarly shaped objects are directly proportional to the cube of a linear dimension.)

Problems like the Kong problem above and numbers 26 and 27 are important applications of patterns in functions. Make sure you can handle those types of problems. Problems 30 and 32 are also interesting and deserve some attention.

Handed out an introduction to logarithms today. It is very important that you read it carefully and don’t skip anything. Logarithms are difficult to build a concept of but if you work carefully through what I give you I can garuntee you will get it.

I’m smelling a test soon…like February 16th??