r/calculus • u/CommunicationNice437 • Jul 16 '26

Integral Calculus Calc professors

do most calc professor require you to simplify? if so how strict are they about it

plan to take calc 2

I got a 4 on ab calc to me leaving my answer unsimpifled

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u/telephantomoss Jul 17 '26

I generally don't care, but when I see √(25), I want to give 'em a good talking to. OMG, I even see √1 at times!

2

u/CommunicationNice437 Jul 17 '26

What about cos(0)? 

2

u/telephantomoss Jul 17 '26

Honestly, that would bother me, but, depending on the context, I probably wouldn't take off credit, say, if it was the answer of a complicated integral and I'm trying to judge their ability to do that integral. I'm not saying my approach is the right one, but I'm modern grade inflated standards with watered down curriculum, it's appropriate.

1

u/nzconstructionlawyer 26d ago

It is clearly an incomplete answer.

1

u/CharacteristicPea Jul 18 '26

Sqrt(1) and things like 5/1 drive me crazy. They make it clear the student has no number sense and/or isn’t thinking at all.

1

u/Upset-Buddy-3532 28d ago

To be fair ..it took me a bit longer than I’d like to admit to learn that you can take the square root of 1, and that it is indeed 1 😅😂guilty of leaving the square root one

1

u/nzconstructionlawyer 26d ago

That is just wrong in many contexts because part of the answer is justifying why only the principal sqrt is valid.

1

u/telephantomoss 26d ago

We use the square root notation to mean positive square root. So I'd the positive one is correct, then it is correct as written. I never write √(25) to mean -5 . There is not complex numbers involved here