Certified Tutors From Union Theological Seminary

The student and I continued to look at parameterizations of equations. We first worked on a packet from class that concerned predicting the plot of simple parameterizations and writing parameterizations in rectangular form. We addressed how the X and Y parameterizations were related and how looking at this relationship (e.g.. ratios, powers) could help identify the shape of the graph. We also talked about how conditions on the variable of parameterization can influence the domain. Finally we reviewed, and practiced with, the projectile motion equations. The student did great!

During this session we went over questions dealing with interpreting first derivatives and second derivatives. We looked at various questions on finding maximum, minimum, point of inflections, where function is concave up and down, increasing and decreasing, and sketching the functions based on these finding. Overall this session went well.

The student did absolutely amazing today! We worked on finding perfect squares and then used that to move into the equation of a circle. By the end she hardly needed help, and she seemed much more confident. I was very proud of how focused she was today, and how she's stuck with it and learned to visualize what we were writing down on paper. The next session we will work on her test corrections from her last test and move on from there. Keep studying your circles, try to get started on test corrections, and good job!

Today the student and I did a review packet for the AP Calculus AB exam coming up. Most importantly, we focused on the no calculator free response. We worked through the questions from two prior AP exams. Most of it was easy review for the student; however, I did mention to him that he needs to write down EVERY SINGLE STEP that is involved in getting the answer because that's how the points are given on the free response section. Overall, he seems VERY prepared, and I'm sure that he will pass with either a 4 or a 5.

Today we started the session by completing the student's math homework for the whole weekend. She had a worksheet where she had to read and understand scenarios, then match them to graphs. She also had to draw graphs for two different scenarios. Once her homework was completed, I had her work on some more graph analysis. We looked at pictographs, histograms, double bar graphs, line graphs, as well as pie charts, and she had to answer questions based on the information the graphs provided. She did really well at understanding what all of the graphs were conveying, even with the more complicated and large data sets. She also did well with understanding "correlation" on some of the graphs.

We continued with finding the limit of functions. This involved determining if a given limit exists, if not why, along with determining if a limit exists using epsilon and delta. We also discussed the laws associated with limits, i.e. sum of, multiplication of, and division of limits. The student struggled with a few of concepts at first but began to understand them at the end. We still need to work on more problems to better understand concepts.