Grade 12 Maths: Advanced Functions & Geom & Discrete

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the upcoming Grade 12 math courses: Advanced Functions & Introductory Calculus and Geometry & Discrete Mathematics. Participants share their experiences, expectations, and resources to prepare for these subjects.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses uncertainty about what to expect from the Advanced Functions and Introductory Calculus courses and seeks preparatory resources.
  • Another participant provides links to online tutorials for precalculus, suggesting they may be helpful for preparation.
  • A participant familiar with the Ontario curriculum describes the calculus course as involving differentiation, limits, continuity, and various methods for finding derivatives.
  • There is mention of specific topics in calculus, including implicit differentiation, related rates, optimization problems, and curve sketching.
  • One participant shares their personal experience, stating they found calculus manageable with a good teacher and emphasizes the importance of doing homework and asking questions.
  • In contrast, the same participant notes that the Discrete Mathematics course was more challenging, particularly the proofs section, while finding the vector topics easier.
  • Another participant mentions that the difficulty of the courses can vary significantly depending on the teacher.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the content and structure of the calculus course, but there are varying opinions on the difficulty of the Discrete Mathematics course and the impact of the teacher on the learning experience. No consensus is reached on the overall difficulty of the courses.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the lack of specific curriculum details and varying personal experiences that may influence perceptions of difficulty and content understanding.

Who May Find This Useful

Students entering Grade 12 who are preparing for Advanced Functions, Introductory Calculus, and Discrete Mathematics, as well as educators seeking insights into student experiences with these courses.

MathHelp
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I will be going into grade 12 soon and the two math courses that I will be taking are 1) Advanced Functions & Intro Calculas 2) Geom & Discrete Math

I have no idea what either one will be like. So is there any info where I can read up about these maths to get more a little more ready for them? :cry:

Thanks.
 
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MathHelp said:
I will be going into grade 12 soon and the two math courses that I will be taking are 1) Advanced Functions & Intro Calculas 2) Geom & Discrete Math

I have no idea what either one will be like. So is there any info where I can read up about these maths to get more a little more ready for them? :cry:

Thanks.
It sounds like you're living in Ontario, am I right? For 1) I'm not sure what the "functions" part of the course will have in store, but introductory calculus will basically be learning some stuff about differentiation. Think of the curve y = x². At the point (0,0), the slope of the curve is zero. As x increases, you can see the slope of the curve increases, and as x decreases (the curve seems to get closer and closer to going straight up), you can see the slope decreases (the curve seems to get closer and closer to going straight down). In fact, you can find the slope of this curve at each value of x, and you get an entirely new function, one that describes the slope of the original curve at each point. This new function is the derivative of the original curve, and you'll basically be doing a lot of stuff that let's you find the derivatives of various functions.

2) If you've done any physics (I assume you have by gr 11) then you will be familiar with vectors. So in this course, you'll be doing a bunch of stuff with vectors. You will also be looking at lines and planes in 3-dimensional space (I'm assuming you can read most of this stuff right out of the course calendar). Hmm... actually, do you have any specific questions. Read the descriptions of the courses and ask about what you don't get.
 
I also live in Ontario and am familiar with the courses.

Calculus, depending on the textbook you are using, will be broken up into a few different parts.

Mainly, it'll involve studying the slope (rate of change) of tangents and secants of functions by means of differentiation and derivation.

First is introductory stuff, reviewing of prerequisite skills (factoring, polynomials, some graphing). After that you'll get into first-principles of deriving functions (finding slope of tangents/secants), limits and continuity of functions. Next you start taking the derivative of functions (slope) using various simpler methods. Then you'll get into implicit differentiation (deriving functions where y is not isolated), related rates and optimization problems (word problems usually having to do with some geometric figure like a cone, cube, sphere, etc). Then you start exponential functions which you will already know, which will lead to logarthmic functions which is a large chunk of the course. Finally is curve sketching which is pretty self explanatory, but lots will be new (finding asymptotes, points of inflection).

Pretty much everything after the first chapter(s) will be new to you, hopefully you'll have a good teacher to guide you through it all. Just do your homework and ask questions and you'll do fine. You already took good initiative to come here!

As for Discrete, I didn't need it for prerequisites so I didn't take it... Even though it would've been smart of me to. But AKG is probably on point with what he mentioned.

If you want to know any more about the Calculus course in detail feel free to ask.
 
yess, more Ontario people. I just fonoshed grade 12, and I took both cources. I got a 94 in calc and a 82 in Discreet. Depending on who youre teacher is, the couce will differ. In calculus, we did the whole book and it was fairly easy. You will have no problem with it if you do your homework and try to understand defivatives and the concept of functions. For discreet, it gets a little hairy. I found the vector stuff easy, this was our first unit (2d, 3d vectors, lines and planes in 3 space). She second part was hard (proofs) and the last part was easy (counting and mathematical induction). In order to succeed in this couce, ask a lot of questions and don't leave a rock unturned. Good luck kid.
 

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