MAC 1105

Review Sheet, Exam 1

January 30, 2011

When: February 7, in class

What Material: Sections R.2-R.7, Section, 1.1 (up to the February 2 lecture, and up to the homework due on February 4)

Procedure: The test will be closed book, closed notes. You will have the entire class period for the test. Calculators will be allowed, but will not be required, nor will they be particularly useful.   You may not use a TI-89 or a TI-92.

Suggested Review:

• Practice.  A bunch.  Practice a whole lot.  The test will be rather straightforward, and all problems on the test will be similar to problems from the homework and quizzes (but of course you should expect the more difficult problems to appear on the test). As always, go through all of the notes, homework problems, and quizzes. Do extra problems from the book that are similar to problems you have difficulty with. Any type of problem assigned in class is fair game for the exam.  You should also practice doing these problems in a test-type situation: no notes, no book, no checking your answer immediately after doing the problem.
• TIME IS AN ISSUE!  You have 50 minutes for this exam.  If you understand the material well enough, then this will be more than enough time for the test.  But if you don’t have a good grip on the material, then you will go slower, and you may run out of time.  Don't expect to have ten minutes to do one factoring problem (more like one to three minutes, depending on the difficulty).
• On MyMathLab, all book problems are accessible throuhg the online text (found in "Chapter Contents") or through the study plan (found in "Study Plan").  You can practice either of these until your heart is content, but make sure you can do the problems without any computer help.
• Finally, you should run through the review problems and chapter test at the end of chapter R.  Since all of the topics appear at the same time, these exercises will give you a better idea of what the test will be like.
  

Specific Topics:

• Real Numbers and Their Properties:  You’ll notice that I take this section somewhat for granted.  You should know what the different types of numbers are (rational, irrational, whole, etc), you should know your order of operations, you should how absolute values work, and you should know number properties (distributive property, commutative property, etc).  Practice Problems: R.2, 15-40, 57-88.
• Polynomials:  Know what they are, what the degree of a polynomial is, and how to do arithmetic with them (practice your long division!).  Practice Problems: R.3, 43-94.
• Factoring:  Factor polynomials using any of the techniques we’ve learned.  It is best to practice with a mixed bag of problems.  Factoring is a portion of a lot of other problems, so be able to do these quickly.  Practice Problems: R.4, 1-16 , 25-46,  and especially 51-70.
• Rational Expressions:  Reduce, multiply, divide, add, and subtract.  Pay particular attention to adding rational expressions with different denominators.  It is also possible for me to put on one of those complex fractions.  Practice Problems: R.5 11-36, 39-69.
• Rational Exponents:  Reduce expressions down, so that you have no negative exponents and no extraneous terms.  Practice Problems: R.6, 15-36, 47-70, 97-102.
• Radical Expressions:  Reduce radical expressions, so that you never have an exponent under the radical that is bigger than the root power, and so that you have no radicals in the denominator.  Also know how to multiply out expressions involving radicals, and know how to rationalize the denominator of an expression.  Practice Problems: R.7, 15-93.
• Linear Equations: Be able to solve a linear equation, and be able to solve an equation for a specific variable.  Practice Problems: 1.1, 9-28, 39-58.