2007 February 12 / E-Mail Me

How to Study Calculus

This is a list of suggestions for studying for calculus exams, from most basic to most ambitious. The higher the grade you want in this class, the farther you should go on this list. The suggestions take a lot of time and hard work, so if you want a good grade, you should get started early. They are not unrealistic; there really are students who complete all of them (they tend to earn As).

0. Do all of the assigned problems

You simply must do all of the homework problems and lab problems. Doing them does not mean that you will get a good grade; it is the bare minimum.

Some students do most of the problems, but then leave off the toughest problems (which often come at the end of the section). That's not a good idea. Your exam will include some difficult problems. If you don't practice them, then you're sacrificing perhaps 25% of your exam grade right off the bat. A student who doesn't go through with even this first suggestion has no chance of competing with serious students.

If there are any homework or lab problems that you get wrong or cannot solve, then talk to another student or the professor about them. If you find that you cannot solve many problems at all, then talk to your professor immediately. In my experience, the issue is usually that the student is rusty on material from earlier math courses such as algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Going over problems and reviewing concepts and skills is the whole point of office hours, the Math Help Room, etc. Make use of them.

1. Think about how you do the problems

I've watched many students work out many math problems. In my opinion, they often leave off the most important step. When you get to the end of a problem, don't immediately move on to the next problem; instead, take a moment to look over your solution.

Do you remember what your method was, or have you already forgotten it? If you were presented with the same problem again, could you solve it without hesitation? Which equations, formulas, and theorems did you use? Is there a better way to solve the problem? Maybe you did some unnecessary steps that could be avoided.

Don't just do problems, but think about how you do them, and try to remember.

2. Practice problems from old labs, quizzes, and tests

When preparing for a midterm exam, make sure you look over your labs and quizzes as well. If you missed any problems, then do them again until you understand them. These quizzes are usually a good indication of what your professor thinks is important, and hence what will be on the exam.

When studying for the final exam, make sure you look over your old exams as well. Also, on Blackboard you should have access to two separate Math 31L sites. One is for my sections, and the other is for all sections of the course. Go to the latter, then "Course Documents", and you will find midterm exams from all of the professors. Do them all. More than mere practice, this gives you an idea of what other professors think is important, so it helps you see beyond the biases of your professor.

3. Do more problems from the book

The assigned homework problems are the bare minimum. To improve your chances of getting a good grade, you should do as many other problems as possible. Simply march through the book, doing all of the problems.

Okay, you probably don't have time for all of the problems, so you have to exercise some discretion. Often there are a few problems of one type, then a few of another type, then a few of another type, and so on. Make sure you practice each type. Spend more time on types that you're not good at.

Many students have trouble interpreting story problems. They should march through those book sections with lots of story problems (related rates, differential equations, etc.) and for each problem, set it up in mathematical notation, make sure the set up makes sense, and then go on to the next problem without solving it (unless you need to practice that as well). If you can't tell whether your set up makes sense, then consult with another student, with the solutions manual in the Math Help Room, or with your instructor.

4. Vary the problems, and write your own

Try altering the book problems to make new problems. Many students seem intimidated by this suggestion, so I give a concrete example below.

The basic idea is this. Alter a problem and try to solve it. Repeat. Then try to abstract the problem, to discover the general structure of all such problems. Or try to come up with an entirely new kind of problem that tests the same concept or skill. Or try to make a story problem out of it. Exchange problems with other students, or talk to your professor for new problem ideas.

Coming up with your own problems not only gives you extra practice, but it gets you thinking about what problems are reasonable for calculus students and how far the concepts can be pushed. Also, it puts you into the mindset of someone writing an exam; that's not useful for your life's education, but it is useful for getting a good grade.

Actually, this suggestion is just a strengthening of the "Think about how you do the problems" suggestion. Whenever you solve a problem, you should ask what makes that problem important, what its essential idea is, what other versions of the problem exist, what version might be asked on the test, what makes it different from other problems, what other kinds of problems is it related to, etc.

Example: Variation

Suppose we've been studying differentiation and in particular the product rule. The book asks me to differentiate

f(x) = ex cos(x) (5x + 1)4.

Try it yourself. The function f is a product of three functions, so differentiating it requires two separate uses of the product rule, along with the chain rule and some careful algebra.

After solving the problem, I ask "What was essential about it? What makes it different from other product rule questions?" I'd say it's the fact that there are three functions multiplied together, not just two. I immediately try a variation:

f(x) = ex sin(x) (7x2 - 1)3.

That's good practice, but it's pretty similar to the first problem. So next I try a wilder variation.

f(x) = arctan(x2 + 17x) sin(e2x) (ln(x + 100) - 4).

These are not easy differentiation problems, and the answers are not in the book, so I ask my instructor to check my work.

Example Continued: Abstraction

After doing a few more variations, I get bored. I realize that I don't really care which three functions I'm talking about, but just the fact that there are three functions. So I abstract the problem: I ask for the general formula for the derivative of a product of three functions

f = p q r.

Following the same process as in the examples, I discover the general formula

f' = (p q r)' = p' q r + p q' r + p q r'.

Then maybe I wonder what the general formula for the derivative of a product of four functions is. What about five functions? What about 17 functions? What about n functions, for any positive integer n? Is there a simple pattern? In this way I move from a concrete book problem to a general theorem about differentiating products of many functions.

In fact, this is how a lot of math is actually discovered/invented in the first place. When you go through such a process, you are acting like a mathematician, which might be a good way to learn math.

Example Continued: A Story Problem

Then I return to the original question and try to turn it into a story problem. What real-world situation requires me to multiply three things together? Well, how about finding the volume of a box from its width, length, and depth? But I need the width, length, and depth to be functions. Maybe I should let the independent variable x be time, and then imagine a real-world situation in which a box's width, length, and depth are changing over time. Hey, how about an ice cube melting in a glass of water?

So suppose I have an ice cube in a glass of water. At time x (measured in minutes, say) its width is ex, its length is cos(x), and its depth is (5x + 1)4. How fast is its volume changing at time x? I have just turned the original question into a story problem.

Is it a good story problem? I don't think so. For one thing, the width and depth are increasing over time, whereas they should probably decrease as the ice melts. So I change ex to e-x and (5x + 1)4 to -(5x + 1)4. Then the width, length, and depth are all positive and decreasing at x = 0, which seems good.

Then I start asking myself more questions. When is the volume zero? What happens after that? Can I make the problem more realistic? Can I make it more entertaining? I think I'll change the water to bourbon and put the glass into the hands of Frank Sinatra.

In order to design a good story problem, I had to interpret the formulas geometrically, think about their physical relevance, understand whether certain functions were positive or not and decreasing or not, etc. So making up a problem gives you a lot of practice in calculus! Then you give the problem to your friend and they get practice, too — especially if they don't know all of the steps that you took to make the problem.

Example Continued: Another Story Problem

As a final challenge to myself, I try to invent a story problem that's not about the volume of a box. In what other situation might I multiply three things? In this case I will use units to guide myself to a fairly reasonable problem.

Suppose I am an environmental consultant for the government of India, trying to devise a plan for the protection of tiger habitat. Depending on the number x of rupees I'm able to spend, I can support p(x) tigers per square kilometer of land, I can purchase q(x) square kilometers of land per year, and I can run the program for r(x) years. Then the number of tigers protected by x rupees is

f(x) = (p(x) tigers/km2) (q(x) km2/yr) (r(x) yr) = p(x) q(x) r(x) tigers.

In order to make a convincing case when requesting money from Indian parliament, I want to maximize f(x). Or do I want to maximize f'(x)? What do you think? In any event, I'm going to need to differentiate a product of three functions.

5. Do problems from other books

Suppose you need more practice on a particular topic, such as separable differential equations, but you've already exhausted your book. In the math library you can find other textbooks on calculus. Specifically, go to the Vesic Library for Math, Science, and Engineering, which is on West Campus. Go upstairs and walk straight forward into the aisle directly in front of you. Then on your right are books with call number 515.15... and titles like "Calculus and Analytic Geometry". That's what you want.

Pick a book and look up "separable differential equations" or "separation of variables" in the index. Then march through the problems. They may be quite different from your book's problems, which is generally desirable. Your exam problems may also be different from your book problems, so it's good to practice creative problem solving. However, if the new book's problems seem too different, or if they seem to rely on a bunch of material that you've never seen before, then ask your instructor if they are appropriate for you.

6. Work on the theory

The ideas of calculus are actually quite subtle and difficult. Even students who receive good grades often do not really understand what a limit is, or how one would go about proving theorems about limits. I didn't, when I first studied calculus. But if you want to improve your chances of getting a good grade, you might try to understand the definitions and theorems deeply, instead of just memorizing them and doing problems with them. Every time I teach calculus I have at least one student who attempts to understand things this deeply. Such students tend to earn As.

Example

Consider the Mean Value Theorem: If a function f is continuous on the closed interval [a, b] and differentiable on the open interval (a, b), then there is some c between a and b such that

f'(c) = (f(b) - f(a))/(b - a).

  1. Explain this theorem using a picture. Try to build a geometric intuition for it.
  2. Why are the assumptions important? What if the function were not continuous on [a, b]? Would the conclusion still hold? Can you come up with a counterexample? What if it were not differentiable on (a, b)?
  3. How is the theorem proved? Try to prove it yourself, but you'll probably need to consult your textbook. It will probably first prove an easier version called Rolle's Theorem. What is that? Understand how to prove the Mean Value Theorem using Rolle's Theorem. Then back up and ask how Rolle's Theorem is proved. Your book probably proves it using the Intermediate Value Theorem. What is that, and how do you prove it? If you follow the trail, then you wind up back at the definition of limits — as everything in calculus eventually does. The farther you can go along this trail, the better you'll understand the Mean Value Theorem, and much of calculus along with it.
  4. What is the Mean Value Theorem good for? What later theorems does it let you prove? Can you prove the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus from it? Try. Consult your book, or another calculus textbook, or your instructor.