• TEXTBOOKS AND FIRST-SEMESTER COURSE SYLLABI VARY FROM INSTITUTION TO INSTITUTION AND SOMETIMES FROM INSTRUCTOR TO INSTRUCTOR.  IF YOU HAVE NOT TAKEN A FIRST-SEMESTER COURSE EQUIVALENT TO CHAPTERS 1-5 OF THE TEXT, YOU MIGHT HAVE TO WORK THROUGH CHAPTER 5, WHICH IS AN INTODUCTION TO THE INTEGRAL,   BEFORE YOU START CHAPTER 6.   IN THIS CASE BE SURE TO DO THE FOLLOWING:

1. If you have the information tell the instructor the author of the text you did use and the titles of the chapters covered.
2. If you don't know much about integrals, and especially if you haven't covered them at all, let the instructor know so you can get the materials you will need to complete Chapter 5 and to adjust your schedule for this course.
3. If your first-semester course didn't cover derivatives of exponential and logarithmic functions let the instructor know.

• You should begin the second semester with a very solid foundation in first-semester calculus.  This should include a typical one-chapter introduction to integration, and knowledge of the rules of differentiation, especially good familiarity with the chain rule.  If you have not had an introduction to integration, you are strongly encouraged to go the the Calculus I homepage and complete the chapter on the definite integral.  In the fourth and fifth editions of the text, this is Chapter 5. 

  This course begins with Chapter 6.

  The page http://vhcc2.vhcc.edu/cal1fall/ is the homepage for the Calculus I course.  The Open Qa's for that course would provide a good review of the basic topics covered in most first-semester classes, and should at least give you a good start on some of the topics that might not have been covered in your first-semseter course. 

  At this page you should be able to easily locate the following Open Qa's:

The open qa's for Assignments 11-12 cover the rules of differentiation.

The open qa's for Assignments 13-15 introduce applications of differentiation, tangent lines and the differential.

The open qa for Assignment 16 addresses implicit differentiation. 

The open qa's for Assignments 1-10 introduce you in a unified way to the concepts of differentiation and integration, beginning with the concept of rate of change. 

The open qa for Assignment 10 is fairly challenging and introduces the central ideas of integration in the context of finding present and future values of an investment.  This specific qa is included in the Orientation to the course, and also in Assignment 1.

Most second-semester calculus students need this refresher on standard first-semester calculus topics.