MATH 250 (37/38) – Precalculus (Spring, 2010)
Instructor: David P. Lang, Ph.D. (Math.), Ph.D. (Phil.)
Office: Ira Allen 212; email: langd@wit.edu
Office Hours: MTF 1:15-1:45; W 1:15-2:45; R 1:15-1:45, 3:00-3:30
Textbook: Algebra & Trigonometry (8th edition), by Michael Sullivan –
Code for the online version
COURSE POLICIES
* Structured Schedule of Class-Time Use:
MTF 3:00-3:50 (lecture/homework questions)
W 3:00-3:50 (lecture/problems), 4:00-4:25 (review), 4:25-4:50 (quiz)
* Attendance: You are expected to attend each class. In fact, attendance will be weighted as 5%
of your course grade, with each of the five 50-minute sessions per week counting as a class.
Missing 15% of class meetings constitutes grounds for withdrawal from the course due to
absenteeism (WA grade). Thus, if you decide to stop coming to class, you might as well drop the
course. If you enter the room late after roll-call is taken, tell me at the end of the period to avoid
being marked absent. If you must leave a bit early, it is polite to inform the instructor before the
class begins. According to p. D-4 of the WIT Catalogue, “Students must wait at least twenty
minutes from the scheduled beginning class time for the instructor to arrive.” If class is canceled
for some reason and there is no substitute instructor, any quiz planned for that day (Wednesday)
will be postponed until the next class meeting (which would then be Friday). According to p. D4 of the WIT Catalogue, “It is the responsibility of the student to provide documentation
regarding illness or anticipated absence.”
* Homework: All sections of the Precalculus course at WIT are now required to use MyMathLab
for homework, which must be counted as 10% of the course grade. (The two lowest homework
scores will be dropped in computing the homework grade at the end of the semester, which
would include a zero incurred by failing to do a particular homework assignment.)
Problem solving cannot be learned merely by watching other people solve problems; you must
practice enough exercises yourself to absorb the concepts! Therefore, selected exercises will be
assigned from each section covered in the textbook for you to do in MyMathLab, with each
teacher having direct access to all information about which students in a class tried the
homework and exactly which questions were troublesome. During class we will do – as models
for the homework exercises – selected problems from the textbook (to be written on the board)
that are similar to those in MyMathLab. Besides opportunities to ask questions during class and
to see me during office hours, free tutoring is available in the Learning Center (Beatty 402) and a
Facilitated Study Group is usually held one evening per week from 5 to 8 pm.
Important! When logging in with your personal code, user name, and password,
to access MyMathLab for this section of Precalculus, use Course ID:
lang27439
* Quizzes: Closed-book, closed-notes (all basic material should be memorized!), and held during
the last 25 minutes of each “lab” period on Wednesdays (beginning January 27). Each quiz will
be on topics covered during the previous Wednesday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday lecture
periods – not on any new topic that may be started during the lecture period that day. The
quizzes will be worth a total of 65% of your overall semester numerical average. No make-ups
without written proof (not an email message) of some genuine emergency, from a doctor, nurse,
or college authority. The lowest quiz score will be dropped (which includes a zero score incurred
by missing a quiz with no authoritative written excuse). You should keep a copy of each quiz to
study for the final exam. [NO MIDTERM EXAM, thus exonerating this course from midterm
stress!]
* Final Exam: A mandatory, cumulative test (including the entire courses subject matter),
worth 20% of your course grade. Save all your quizzes to study from, because the Final Exam
will be based on these, as well as on a sample or “practice” final exam handed out near the
courses end.
* Calculators: A scientific calculator is required (graphing calculator allowed), but all crucial
intermediate steps must be shown in order to get credit for a correct result on a test. Answers
alone, lacking justification, will receive zero credit.
* Academic Honesty: Test answers unsupported by detailed work are unacceptable, due to the
possibility of somehow glimpsing an answer on someone elses test paper. Also, for this reason
no caps/hats with visors shielding the forehead (and roving eyes) will be permitted during any
test, nor any laptop computers nor headphones nor use of cell phones. (See pp. D-6,7 of WIT
Catalogue regarding cheating, as well as the intolerability of any other form of classroom
disruption or misbehavior.)
* Grading: A system based on your absolute performance, not relative to a competition with the
rest of the students. Thus, there are no quotas, no scaling or curving, and no extra-credit projects.
Your overall semester numerical average will simply be converted to a letter grade for the course
strictly according to the following key: 96-100=A, 92-95=A-, 88-91=B+, 84-87=B, 80-83=B-,
76-79=C+, 72-75=C, 68-71=C-, 64-67=D+, 60-63=D, 0-59=F.
* Recommendations for Success in Course:
(1) attend all classes
(2) read the textbook (available online with code for MML)
(3) do all homework problems (deficiency here will be evident on quizzes)
(4) do not be embarrassed to ask questions about any points of confusion
(5) if possible, study with classmates and share knowledge (not during a test, though)
Warning: This precalculus course goes much more deeply into algebra and trigonometry than the
prerequisite College Math I (MATH 205) or its equivalent. Key topics to be learned from
Chapters 3 to 8 are: general operations on functions, linear functions, quadratic functions,
exponential functions, logarithmic functions, trigonometric functions, and inverse trigonometric
functions – all with applications.
KEEP A COPY OF THIS SYLLABUS TO REFER TO IN CASE OF FUTURE QUESTIONS!