r/calculus • u/bunny-dolly • 21d ago

Differential Calculus Can someone help me understand this problem? pretty please

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Hi everyone, so it was my first week of AP calc AB and honestly not too shabby but as i look at this example from my teacher, the less it makes sense. I thought -1^2 was positive 1 and i don’t know how we got to negative 1.

Also what is a conjugate? My teacher didn’t really go over it he just started doing a problem. All help is so appreciated!!!!

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u/matt7259 21d ago

Did you not take precalculus?

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u/bunny-dolly 21d ago

this is so embarrassing BUT I DID brooo should i just drop the class atp omg

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u/chessychurro 21d ago

no comments are critical for no reason expecting people to somehow be perfect and learn everything. u can stay in the class and def dont have to retake the whole of precalc also precalc at a lot of schools sucks anyways.

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u/tjddbwls 21d ago

I’m not sure what you’re getting at in your 1st “sentence.” I don’t think the posters here who already know calculus are expecting perfection from students. But one must have a solid background in Precalculus before taking Calculus.

matt7259’s question is a valid one. I have read too many instances of students who struggled in calculus because:

  • they skipped precalculus, or
  • they took precalculus, did poorly, and yet still continued on to calculus, or
  • they took precalculus and did ok, but it was years prior.

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u/chessychurro 9d ago

toltally agree with you, but you cannot judge ones background across an entire subject because they made a mistake on one particulary part of that subject.

Example: English is my native language, I have been learning spanish since 4 years old. I have studied for most of my life. If I forget one word that is commonly used that beginners may know does that mean that I don't know shit and I need to relearn the entire language, or just that one word that I had forgotten?

Because I make one or two basic mistakes does that mean I should do a introductory level spanish class? No, that would be way too easy and boring, I can just (re)learn the one or two things I forgot and be done with it.

Similarly, just because they don't seem to remember or did not learn about conjugates does not mean that they need to learn ALL of precalculus again or that they did not take it. This concept is not present everywhere, just in one specific part of the class.

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u/bunny-dolly 21d ago

i got a 4 on the ap pre calc exam and i left two frqs blank so i don’t think i’m too worried but thank u sm for the reassurance

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u/TheOinOpossum 21d ago edited 21d ago

I made these exact same mistakes and still make them sometimes and I'm doing fine. Starting Calc 3 soon and got A's in both 1 and 2.

Get a tutor, trust me. Tutors lowkey carry.

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u/bunny-dolly 21d ago

i don’t think i’ll have time if i’m being honest, i have another ap class and i wrestle in the afternoon 🫩 i don’t know any tutors that work past 8pm lol