What to review for Calculus II?

[leaveit2rani]

I have not taken Calculus since high school, which was about a year ago. I think I forgot a lot of stuff. I am taking calc 2 this fall, so what should I go back and study? Do I need to remember related rates, max/min, etc?

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[moose stuff]

From what I remember making sure you have calc 1 integration down cold will be the biggest help for the transition to calc 2. Other than that I don't remember there being a ton of overlap between the two classes.

 

[Morsetlis]

Good news! It's not on the MCAT ;p

For your A, for your GPA, learn to integrate / derive / find the area/volume of surfaces/solids via integration. Should take like 4 hours at most to relearn everything.

 

[Eric01]

Make sure you know the formulas for all kinds of integrations. I'd recommend going over substitution integrals and learning how to recognize what type of substitutions you should make.

Also go over trig identities.

 

[JESSFALLING]

Everything above! Plus you should get a feel for mathematical series solutions. Khanacademy has several good examples. Also, be sure you're comfortable working in various coordinate systems (e.g. polar).

 

[cham90]

I would skim over the topics here: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcI/CalcI.aspx

See what you need some practice with and what you have down fairly well. Khan Academy is also great.

 

[Elpenor]

integrals and derivatives

 

[chemistryguy]

as long as you did well in Clac I you shouldnt even need to review.

 

[JonnyL]

The methods of Calc II are really easy. You just have to practice a lot because there are a lot of potential errors that can be made--most of the time it's algebraic errors.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Calc II is the easiest math class you take (if you take more). I'd say even more than Calc I. Literally all you do is memorize integration techniques.

Now multi-variable calc, that's a real *****.

 

[JESSFALLING]

Calc II is the easiest math class you take (if you take more). I'd say even more than Calc I. Literally all you do is memorize integration techniques.

Now multi-variable calc, that's a real *****.

The difference in difficulty between Calc II & III depends a lot on the individual's thinking style. People that are good at 3D visualization tend to do better in Calc III; whereas the "memorization folks" (i.e. "Premeds") tend to do better in Calc II. Honestly, they are both easy in comparison to upper-division math or physics...which require a completely different class of brain.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

The difference in difficulty between Calc II & III depends a lot on the individual's thinking style. People that are good at 3D visualization tend to do better in Calc III; whereas the "memorization folks" (i.e. "Premeds") tend to do better in Calc II. Honestly, they are both easy in comparison to upper-division math or physics...which require a completely different class of brain.

I can't think in triple integrals for ****.

Linear algebra and differential equations were a break from multi-variable for me.

Multi-variable. Never forget.

 

[Lil Mick]

Make sure you know how to do integration. Other than that, you can probably pick up whatever you've forgotten as you go through the class. The sequences and series material was probably my favorite part of the class (no prior calc techniques needed).

I personally prefer topology and linear algebra to calc and its analysis cousins...

 

[orthomyxo]

Relearn your trig too. I forgot mine and almost had a mini heart attack when we had to integrate a sine expression on a quiz.

 

[gettheleadout]

integrals and derivatives

Super constructive comment there, buddy.

Calc II is the easiest math class you take (if you take more). I'd say even more than Calc I. Literally all you do is memorize integration techniques.

Now multi-variable calc, that's a real *****.

This is the complete opposite at my school. Our Calc II is accepted to be more difficult than Calc III.

 

[cham90]

This is the complete opposite at my school. Our Calc II is accepted to be more difficult than Calc III.

Same at my school. I even felt that Calc II was tougher than Diff Eq, but that may have been because I buckled down my sophomore year.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

One of the most important things that helped me was to get comfortable with trig and know the identities, I used it ALOT in calc II and having reviewing/refreshed it beforehand helped out.

If you want a good head start on the class, The Calculus Lifesaver is a fantastic book, I read the first few chapters on Calc II before my class and it made the beginning a lot easier, because I was able to get the basics down.

 

[235788]

I took the special non-math major calc (lol ) started with advance diff eq and ended up with what could be considered stats.

 

[leaveit2rani]

I'm looking at my old CALC BC prep book.. do I need to go back and do volume of solids, area between curves, related rates, max and min (w/ curve sketch)? Thanks!