Thread: Taking Calculus II next semester...What should I expect?

1. Taking Calculus II next semester...What should I expect?

Hi,

new to the forum here.

I am taking Calculus II next semester and every math oriented person I've ever talked to has told me it is by far the hardest math class. It has got me kind of worried. I've taken a business math class (no trig), and we used very basic integration techniques. Integration by substitution, and Integration of the very basic functions (e^x, ln x) as well as some applied problems with logistic growth.

What makes Calc II so much harder?

My Calculus I professor always talks about how all of his A+ Calculus I students got into Calculus II and failed miserably.

2. I'd suggest as you stated, Integrals make up a big part, as well as using trigonometric integrals in some cases, so practice integrals by substitutions, including, trig substitutions, and integration by parts, and get familiar with the table of integrals so you can easily find which functions have a elementary form, or has some form that is achieved in the table. Also get to know your limits, working with various limit problems, using different methods such as L' Hospitals Rule and making comparison to other function to determine a limit if the integral maybe be too hard to determine the limit, that just my two cents of what I ran into, also a bit of basic physics problems, such as work, force, pressure. Also volume of revolution and using
partitioning certain geometric shapes to find there volume or area

3. Originally Posted by EconMajorMathMinor
Hi,

new to the forum here.

I am taking Calculus II next semester and every math oriented person I've ever talked to has told me it is by far the hardest math class. It has got me kind of worried. I've taken a business math class (no trig), and we used very basic integration techniques. Integration by substitution, and Integration of the very basic functions (e^x, ln x) as well as some applied problems with logistic growth.

What makes Calc II so much harder?

My Calculus I professor always talks about how all of his A+ Calculus I students got into Calculus II and failed miserably.
Honestly, Calc II is no different than calc I. Ostensibly it appears that you may actually have to do some creative work with integrals (figuring out clever techniques to solve them) and in fact you should. But, unfortunately most calc II classes are reduced to a dichotomy chart of memorized formulae...just like calc I

4. Originally Posted by Drexel28
Honestly, Calc II is no different than calc I. Ostensibly it appears that you may actually have to do some creative work with integrals (figuring out clever techniques to solve them) and in fact you should. But, unfortunately most calc II classes are reduced to a dichotomy chart of memorized formulae...just like calc I
And that is where many of several problems arise Drexel, in Calc I, were merely shown, this is the formula how it works, just remember and you'll be good. However, when I arose in Calc II my teacher, old school fellow, did not believe in that, and explained the elongated way of teaching things, which was the principle of how these concepts and formulas works, and MAYBE saying there was a "shortcut" but he always say if you know the principle of how the concept works, you will not to need to memorize formulas, which is the right way, obviously, and for me to pass. lol.