Courses   <-  Sean Forman   <-  You Are Here Brief Business Calculus

Feb. 27, 2004

Second Exam Review. The second exam is Wednesday, March 3.

You will not need a special calculator, one able to do basic arithmetric will be sufficient. Any calculator capable of doing symbolic differentiation will not be allowed (for example the TI-89 and above). You will not have any notes or formulas available to you. Here is a summary of topics covered in the first part of the course. There may be other topics not listed here. You are responsible for all material covered in class and on homework.

I may also ask some derivative problems from the first exam using the derivative rules. I would place the relative importance at 15% old stuff, 45% chap. 7 material and 40% chap. 6 material.

1. Section 6.5 Higher order derviatives. You will need to know how to take second, third, etc. derivatives and then plug in a given value. You should know that the second derivative of position is acceleration and the first derivative is velocity. I could ask you to match graphs to various scenarios as with problem 28. You should know what the units are for a higher order derivative. For instance, I might ask what the maximum height is for something jumping into the air, similar to the jumping frog problem.

2. Section 6.6 Chain rule. You will need to know the chain rule and will ask you to do a number of these types of problems. I may ask to you to split a function into its composite parts. The chain rule problems will be similar to the homework problems that I asked you to do.

3. Section 6.7 Non-differentiable functions. You should know what causes non-differentiability and be able to recognize it in graphs.

4. Section 7.1 Graphing using the first derivative. You should be able to identify on what intervals a first derivative is positive or negative. You will not have to graph a problem from start to finish. I may ask you to find critical values for a graph by finding a derivative. You will need to know how to recognize a maximum and a minimum. It is possible that I will give you the derivative, but not the function, so that you would not be able to graph it. I could ask you what the value of the maximum is for the function (plugging the critical value into the original function). I could ask you to match up a graph with a set of characteristics for a function.

5. Section 7.2 Similar to 7.1 except adding the second derivative. You should be able to identify on what intervals a second derivative is positive or negative. You should be able to find inflection points. You should know how to use the second derivative to find relative maximums and minimums. You should know what a point of inflection is and how to find it.

The exam is not yet completed, but I anticipate the test looking like the homework problems except as stated above.