Mary Jane Sterling - Pre-Calculus For Dummies

Pre-Calculus For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions .

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit https://hub.wiley.com/community/support/dummies .

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com . For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955376

ISBN 978-1-119-50877-9 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-50879-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-50871-7 (ebk)

Welcome to Pre-Calculus For Dummies, a nondiscriminatory, equal-opportunity book. Youre welcome to participate whether you are just looking for a quick review or, instead, need some serious prep work before tackling calculus. You may be reading this book for a few perfectly great reasons. Maybe your algebra is a bit rusty, and you want a review that focuses on the material youll need for calculus. And then, perhaps your trigonometry preparation wasnt as thorough as you would have liked, and you want to get down-and-dirty with the basic topics. Regardless of why you opened up this book, youll find material that will help you navigate the path that is pre-calculus on the way to the road that is calculus.

You may also be wondering, Will I really need pre-calculus? The answer is yes, if youre seriously contemplating taking a calculus course or two. You want to have the basics down cold so you can concentrate on the wonderful topics youll be finding in calculus. And the concepts throughout this book are also used in many other real-world applications and mathematics arenas.

This book has one goal and one goal only to teach you the topics covered in pre-calculus in as painless a way as possible. Its presented in words you can relate to and contains figures and pictures to further advance your understanding.

This book is not necessarily meant to be read from beginning to end. Its structured in a way that you can flip to a particular chapter and get your needs met (this, that, or the other).

All vocabulary is mathematically correct and clear and explained when its special to the particular topic. Being precise about mathematical terms is important; it makes the explanation of the subject quicker and clearer, and it gets everyone thinking the same thing about the topic.

Pre-calculus can be a special math arena, but the material covered in pre-calculus comes from many different areas: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, analytic geometry, and so forth. What youll need from pre-calculus varies, depending on the calculus course or book youll be using next. Because it cant be predicted exactly what youll need to take away for the next book, youll find pretty much every concept that may be under consideration. Just use this book according to your particular needs.

As youre contemplating what to do with all the subject areas covered in this book, consider the two alternatives:

• Look up only what you need to know, when you need to know it. This book is handy for this technique. Use the index, the table of contents, or better yet, the quickie contents at a glance found in the very front of this book to find what you need.
• Start at the beginning and read through the book, chapter by chapter. This approach is a good way to tackle these subject areas because the topics sometimes build on previous ones. Even if youre a math whiz and you want to skim through a section that you feel you know, you may be reminded of something that you forgot. Its recommended that you start at the beginning and slowly working your way through the material. The more practice you have, the better.

It cant be assumed that just because some of us absolutely love math that you share the same enthusiasm for the subject. It can be assumed, however, that you opened this book for a reason: You need a refresher on the subject, need to learn it for the first time, are trying to relearn it for some future endeavor, or have to help someone else understand it at home. It can also be assumed that you have been exposed, at least in part, to many of the concepts found in this subject because pre-calculus really just takes geometry and Algebra II concepts to the next level.

It has to be assumed that youre willing to do some work. Although pre-calculus isnt the end-all to math courses out there, its still a higher level math course than some. Youre going to have to work a bit, but you knew that, didnt you? And youre looking forward to the challenge!