Certified Tutors From Mount St. Mary's College

I met the student and her family. We sat down and talked about where she was struggling most in Algebra II. As we worked through some problems for a prior quiz, it is apparent that she understands mathematical concepts in general and has a good feel for the material here. However, she makes procedural mistakes and is weak on solving word problems. We will work on that in future sessions.

We covered vector addition for physics applications and Riemann Sums including left, right, midpoint, trapezoidal, and Simpsons. The student understands them quite well and primarily needed help understanding how to perform them faster for tests.

We worked on combining like terms, solving simple equations, and solving inequalities. The student did very well and was enthusiastic about the work.

We went over how to make t-charts and graph functions with them. The student did very well as it is a process she is already familiar with. We mainly worked on how to solve these functions when the variable is the exponent. After practice, she was able to do it on her own very well. We finished by going over exponential decay and half-life functions, which she understood very well. It was a pleasure to work with her; she is very smart and has a very bright future ahead of her. I am proud to see the progress she has made, especially since the start of this school year. I will miss working with her and wish her the best of luck wherever her path may lead!

We covered the basis of Rolle's theorem, that is, critical points and how they translate to derivatives. We covered inclusivity of endpoints and how that affects global extrema, and the process for eliminating points as potential candidates for being an extrema. The student seems to have a good fundamental grasp of calculus concepts, which is very good, but simply doesn't see the way to the solution as clearly as she might. Additionally, she is prone to algebra errors, and we will work on cleaning that up in the future.

Today was our first session, and it went really well. We used online resources to practice reading comprehension and math topics. The student did very well with both; he could work on solving for unknowns by isolating variables in polynomials. I recommend buying practice workbooks and making note cards for new vocab words.