My students have a lot of tests this week including both my regular and honors Precalc students. Most of them have the day off tomorrow for Veteran’s Day so all their tests have been crammed onto Monday or Tuesday! Their books typically save the word problems for the end of the chapter so that is what they’ve been doing a LOT of lately. And I know students usually have the most trouble with word problems so let’s dive right in!

 

My regular Precalc students are finishing off the trig chapter that has been mainly graphing sin, cos, and tan curves. The chapter ends with word problems like ferris wheels, high tide/low tide, heartbeats…basically anything that can be modeled by a sin or cos curve. Here are two of the most common examples…

 

 

My honors Precalc students are finishing of the logarithm chapter. It has a big section with exponential word problems like half-life, continuous compounding of money, population growth, etc. I’ve worked out and explained a few common, but difficult examples…

 

 

Best of luck if you have tests this week too! And have a great day off tomorrow if your school observes the holiday!