My Midterm Exam Prep Seminar for Math 1500 is Saturday, October 25.  It is NOT on campus.  It is held at Canadian Mennonite University, on the SOUTH side of Grant Ave., at 600 Shaftesbury Blvd.  In the Lecture Hall.  It costs $20 if you bring my book to the seminar, or $40 without a book.

Even those of you taking the course by distance (and who therefore do not have a midterm exam) should consider attending the seminar since it will be a good review of the course so-far.

Did you read my tips on how to study and learn Math 1500?  If not, here is a link to those important suggestions:

Did you see my tips for Assignment 1? Click here.

These are tips for the first assignment in the Distance/Online Math 1500 course, but I strongly recommend that you do this assignment as homework even if you are taking the classroom lecture section of the course.  These assignments are very good (and challenging) practice.  The first assignment is a great way to build and review key skills that will be helpful for this course.

Here is a link to the actual assignment, in case you don't have it:

You need to study Lesson 2 (Limits), Lesson 3 (Continuity), Lesson 4 (The Definition of Derivative), and Lesson 5 (The Differentiation Rules) from my Intro Calculus book to prepare for this assignment.

Don't have my book?  You can download a free sample of my book and audio lectures containing Lessons 1 and  2:

This question uses definitions I don't discuss in my book but I think it is kind of obvious which graph is which here (there is one of each).  If you look at the graph I drew at the start of my Limits Lesson on page 32, x = -1 is a removable discontinuity because we could "fix" that discontinuity by filling that hole with a dot; x = 2 is a jump discontinuity because the graph jumps from one location (y = 4) to an entirely new location (y = -1); x = 4 is an infinite discontinuity because the graph is flying away to infinity or negative infinity as it approaches 4.

This is a classic continuity problem, as illustrated in my Lesson 3, questions 1, 2 and 3.

This question is using the Intermediate Value Theorem as illustrated in Lesson 3, questions 4 and 5.

This is a classic continuity problem, as illustrated in my Lesson 3, questions 1, 2 and 3.

This is infinite limits as discussed in Lesson 2, questions 12 to 14.  Make sure you look at my Practise Problems in that lesson, too.  Especially question 74.

Make sure that, when you are computing the square root of x-squared that you include a note on the side explaining that the square root of x-squared is the absolute value of x.  Then determine if that means the absolute value of x is x or -x, as the sign of x dictates in the particular limit.

This is similar to my Lesson 2, question 15.  You must find all the values of x that cause K/0 to find the Vertical Asymptotes (i.e., look for bottom zeros), and compute the limits as x approaches both positive infinity and negative infinity to find the Horizontal Asymptotes.  Note that there can be more than one of either asymptote.

Athough they don't make it clear, the sections they are referring to in the text suggest they want you to use the Definition of Derivative to find the derivative in this problem.  Study Lesson 4 in my book to learn how to use the definition of derivative and find the equation of a tangent line.

You can check that your answer for the derivative is correct by using the differentiation rules.  You will have to simplify the derivative in order to confirm that it matches your previous answer.

Another Definition of Derivative problem as taught in Lesson 4.

You can check that your answer for the derivative is correct by using the differentiation rules.  You will have to simplify the derivative in order to confirm that it matches your previous answer.

A good run-through of the various Differentiation Rules, as taught in Lesson 5 of my book.

I show you how to solve trig limits such as this back in Lesson 2, question 16 of my book.