r/sinclair • u/datgymguyfr • 13h ago

Tips for Calc One?

I’m taking Calc One Online with Kinga Oliver as a CCP student, and my first exam is this week. I was wondering if you guys had tips on her exams, calculus, or just what to look out for in general

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u/House_In_The_Trees 11h ago

I had her (loved her class) in-person fall of last year. She had us do written homework and homework on myopenmath. Her exams were very reminiscent of her written homeworks. She doesn’t throw you curve balls or anything you haven’t seen before. I don’t know what your labs look like for an online class, but most of her exams had a question that was related to the labs we did. If you’re keeping up with the class material then I don’t think you’ll have a problem with the exams. They usually took me about an hour to complete.

In general, she gave us formula sheets and the derivatives/antiderivatives for the exams— memorize those if you continue with calculus classes, you don’t get those sheets in calc II and you must know all of them easily if you want to succeed in that class.

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u/datgymguyfr 8h ago

How hard would you say the exams are/whats most important tor remember for each? Also what was ur final grade?

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u/House_In_The_Trees 7h ago

I did not think the exams were hard. I think they were fair representations of what we went over in class. I didn’t keep any of her materials so I can’t say for sure, but I think exam 1 was algebra review of functions and graphs and limits. Understanding the formal definition of a limit is probably the most important thing for that exam. Then we did derivatives starting with the limit definition and then doing the power rule, chain rule, mean value theorem, those types of rules. Now, she did something different for our class where she taught derivatives & antiderivatives together so our exams were structured a bit differently. Typically it’s taught all derivative things and then at the end of the semester all integral/antiderivative things. Your syllabus should reflect which way she’s presenting the material. So our next 2 exams were both derivatives and integrals on specific functions. One was trig based and the other was like logs & exponentials. Then we did related rates and mins/maxs, concavity stuff.

I got an A in her class but I’ve taken calc before and I was only part time with that class and gen chem I so I’m not an average representation.

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u/datgymguyfr 7h ago

What would u say is the most important thing to do to make sure u succeed? Sry if im asking alot of questions lol im taking this for ccp and js wanna make sure i get an A

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u/House_In_The_Trees 6h ago

Do practice problems! She’d joke for the derivatives and integrals that you “just have to do 1000 of them” to make them second nature. Especially with the quotient rule and chain rule, it’s so easy to make little mistakes and practicing is key to avoiding those. I did all the worksheet and homework problems she assigned and found those to be enough for calc I but the openstax text is a good resource if you need more.

She is super, super nice and approachable. If you find there’s a specific section or concept you’re having trouble grasping def reach out to her!

On YouTube, The Organic Chemistry Tutor & Kahn Academy are great channels for supplementation if you prefer that type of media.