Exam II will be held in the usual room at the usual time: 12:00-1:15 on Tuesday Oct. 28. It will start promptly at 12:00, so make sure you're on time. The test will cover sections 2.8, 2.9, 3.1-3.5, 3.7. Be sure to bring your student ID.

The test will have four or five problems, possibly with several parts each. Calculators or other mechanical assistance are not needed and are not to be used.

You will need to be comfortable computing derivatives correctly in order to solve the problems from this part of the course.

The following topics are likely to be covered, though the exam is not limited to these topics:

• related rates problems
• finding the linearization of a function at a point; using the linearization to approximate the value of f at a nearby point
• the closed interval method: finding the absolute max and absolute min of a function on a closed interval
• the mean value theorem and applications
• critical numbers; f ''(x) and concavity; inflection points; identifying local maxima and minima using the first and second derivative tests
• horizontal asymptotes; finding them using limits at infinity; computing these limits
• optimization problems

Pages 231 - 234 from section 3.4 (the subsection "Precise Definitions") are not covered.

Advice: I recommend first reviewing homework problems from each section, perhaps doing a few odd-numbered ones and checking your answers. If you get one wrong, don't skip ahead, but tackle it right away and find out how it works. There may be a similar example worked out in the section, or among one of our graded problems, or you can try getting help. I also recommend the "Concept Check" questions at the end of each chapter as a way of finding out where to focus your efforts. There are extra problems there too that are worth trying out.

When it comes time for the test itself, relax and do the best you can. Because you have studied, you know which topics you know best, and can get those problems out of the way quickly. Then you'll have more time to spend on the remaining ones.