Calculus 1 (I'm taking the class in a week.)

[ME_student]

Not necessarily true. It depends on what the function is. Derivatives and anti-derivatives are rules that can be applied to functions. Some functions will allow you to derive/anti-derivative more than once. Integration is where your anti-derivative practice is going.

Look at the chain rule if you haven't had a chance yet.

We are not allowed to use the chain rule yet. We are still manipulating our functions and derivatives by graphing it.

I recently learned how to take a function and draw a tangent slope barely touching the function. Then using rise/run to get a slope. Another graph I would trace the lines out getting my derivative of the function.

How do I approach anti-derivatives by graphing?

 

[ME_student]

From my experience in all of the calc courses, this is all that matters...

1. WHO you learn from. Calculus is more about ideas/concepts where as college algebra is just rhetoric memorization. Who guides you in learning is everything in calc. If your professor is standing up there speaking total gibberish to you, then seriously consider substituting that time with a personal tutor or a different lecture professor. Calculus is so easy if its explained correctly. Khan Academy is probably your best friend for as far as tutoring goes. My experience from calculus was that lecture was straight boring and helpless and so was recitation. So I found a good book on calculus, learned from it and never showed up to another lecture or recitation in calc for all 3 courses did well on the exams and tests.

2. Know your basics. Seriously, don't waste your time with calculus if you can't score an 80 on a college algebra final right now. Yeah, you could skid through one hell of a bumpy semester with poor college algebra preparation as I've seen my friends do whereas I spent maybe 3 hours a week in every calculus course and most of it was on just the theory.

I take back what I said about Khan Academy being a good source. He teaches calc differently than I am use to because when he applies chain rule he derives it from the inside out. I thought we are suppose to derive from the outside in.