So, we actually did a fair bit this week, meaning that I'll actually have something to talk about. Kinda strange, after basically ranting about nothing for the past few weeks, but I'm thankful for the topic. I honestly don't know how much more I have left to say that I haven't already beaten into the ground.
The biggest thing this week, in my mind, was the quiz on... Wednesday, I believe. I usually don't study for quizzes in general, especially not math ones, but after hearing that it'd be an AP style quiz, I figured I should at least look over the sections. Naturally, that meant doing the bare minimum, looking over a few things in 1st hour. In hindsight, probably not a great choice, but whatever, it worked out. Anyways, when the quizzes were handed out, I just paused and stared at it for at least a minute, and I quickly realized that I had pretty much no idea what I was doing. So much for an easy quiz, huh? Well, after poring over it for a little bit, I realized that, for whatever reason, the free response question (which easily made up the majority of the points) wasn't all that bad, and I wound up answering it first. Yeah, I got caught up on the first part, trying to figure out how to get from the second derivative to the original function while finding constants, but I managed to find the right answer relatively quickly. The multiple choice questions, on the other hand, were a whole different story. The third one was super basic, and I finished that one pretty quick; plugging things into the calculator isn't even remotely difficult, and I managed to complete it without needing even a shred of understanding. The other two, however, stumped me for probably 15 minutes altogether. Riemann Sums weren't exactly a priority when I looked over stuff (I was more focused on things like the Mean Value Theorem, which wound up helping me out on that FRQ) and I forgot how to do them entirely, so I literally just completed the multiplication and got something like 2/3. Then I just picked the answer that was the closest, and it happened to be right. That was pretty cool. The first question, however, couldn't be solved in the calculator at all, and it really forced me to think back and pull forward some of the stuff we learned last week. Eventually, after trying a bunch of different things and nearly resorting to guessing at least twice, I realized that I could split the antiderivative apart and, in doing so, find the correct answer. I'd have to say that was the highlight of class this week, finding that answer after struggling with the problem for so long. Although, now that I think of it, acing the test in general was pretty great, too, even more so when you take into account the average grade the class had on it.
I'm going to cut that off there so I don't start getting too cocky. This week's notable lesson was on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, which hasn't been too bad yet. It seems fairly straightforward, especially since we'd previously established that an antiderivative is the opposite of a derivative. I assume that this'll have more implications than just that, though; we learned that a while back, fairly early on in derivatives, so it'd be pretty dumb to bring it up now and have it end there. The work hasn't been bad though, and I've managed to finish it all in class, so it's not much of an issue, at least not yet.
Well, that's it for tonight. In an effort to deviate from my usual ending, I'll just end it off here. See you next time!