21-105 Pre-Calculus (H&SS)

21-105 Pre-Calculus (H&SS) 21-105 Pre-Calculus

Time and place: 3:30PM-4:20PM, SH 206

Text: "Precalculus functions & graphs" by Swokowski and Cole, 9th edition.

Instructor: Prof. Rami Grossberg

Office: WEH 7204

Phone: x8482 (268-8482 from external lines), messages at 268 2545

email: Rami@cmu.edu

URL: www.math.cmu.edu/~rami

Office Hours: MW 2-3:15PM or make an appointment.

Recitation

Section A

R, 12:30PM-01:20PM, PH 125B
TA: Caner Kazanci, ckazanci@andrew.cmu.edu
Wednesday between 1:00-2:00 Friday between 10:00-11:00 WeH 6207
URL: www.math.cmu.edu/~ckazanci
TA's telephone: (412) 268-3187

Section B

R, 01:30PM-02:20PM, PH A22
TA: Caner Kazanci, ckazanci@andrew.cmu.edu
Wednesday between 1:00-2:00 Friday between 10:00-11:00 WeH 6207
URL: www.math.cmu.edu/~ckazanci
TA's telephone: (412) 268-3187

Information concerninig peer tutoring: CMU thru Academic Development offers free tutoring. They are located in room 212 OSC. Phone: 412-268-6878. Students can check out the schedule for the walk-in tutoring and various SI sessions at the website.

Evaluation: Is based on four 50 minute tests (in class), homework assignments, and a three-hour comprehensive final. These will be weighted as follows:

Each of the four midterm tests will make up 20%
The final will make up 20%
Homework assignments will make up 20%.
Your grade will be computed based on your best 10 HW assignments (the lowest grade assignments past 10 will be droped, any assignment you did not turn in will count as zero), final and the top 3 midterm grades (the lowest midterm grade will be droped). Since many of the test questions will be based on and are connected to HW problems the relative weight of being able to do the HW correctly is much greater than 20%. Doing the HW assignments is the key to success in this course. You should make all possible efforts to do your HW. Not doing the HW will lead to failing this course.
Tests will be closed book and calculators will not be allowed.

The letter grade will be computed as follows: 85-100 A, 75-84 B, 65-74 C, 50-64 D, and 49 or below R.

Test Dates: The midterms will be in class, scheduled instead of a regular lecture. The first midterm will be held on Friday September 12, test 2 is on Friday 10/3, the third test is on Friday 10/24 and the forth test on Friday 11/21. The date of the final will be anounced.
The date of the final is to be determined by enrollment services. The final exam has not yet been scheduled. It may take place as late as December 16. If you must make travel plans before the exam schedule is released, you should not schedule your departure before the morning of December 17. No student will be allowed to take the final exam early.
The final will be on Friday 12/12 5:30PM-8:30PM, DH A317.
Makeups: Only in case of documented illness or family emergency or documented University sponsored trips you may reschedule an exam. You are permitted to work on HW problems with your friends, however you should write up your own solutions. The standards of academic honesty as stated in the Student Handbook will be enforced.

Assignments: Will be from the textbook, a list will be anounced during the lectures (and posted on the web). The HW is due for the begining of the Thursday recitation. It is strongly recommended to do all assignments, the TA will not accept late HW unless of illness, family emargency etc. In case of difficulties you should consult your TA or can consult me.

Goals: The main purpose of this course is to prepare you for the calculus sequence and other courses that require mathematical skills. We will learn basic algebraic facts concerning the real and complex numbers, algebraic expressions, exponents and radicals as well as facts about equations and inequalities. We will continue by introducing one of the most important concepts of modern mathematics, the concept of a function and study several properties of functions. Later we will move on to more specialized functions namely ploynmials, exponential and logarithmic functions and we will end with learninig some of the basics of trigonometric functions.

The development of the Calculus is one of the most important events of the second millenium. Since it's discovery/invention by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the seventeenth century it has permeated all areas in the biological, physical and social sciences.

Material to be covered: I plan to cover most of the non-trivial material of the first five chapters of the book, with a special emphasis on chapters 1, and 3 that are the more interesting (and the hardest) chapters in the book. The course schedule can be found here.

Important: You should attend all lectures and take carefull notes. In case you will miss a lecture you should try to get a copy of the notes from one of your classmates. While attending the lectures is not a formal requirement, based on my exprience if you will not attend all the lectures and attempt to do all the homework you will fail the course. While I plan to post some information about the course on the web (including HW assignments), the web or email are not substitutes for attending lectures and recitations.

Rami's home page.

Last modified: October 22^th, 2003