University of Washington - Department of Mathematics

Math 120 Course Syllabus

The following is an example schedule for Math 120. The course uses the textbook Precalculus, by Collingwood and Prince (the 2008-9 edition available as a pdf here). The following is approximate; actual scheduling of topics depends on the academic calendar and instructor choice.

Week Chapters Topics
1 1, 2, 3 Introduction
Unit Conversion
Coordinate systems
Distance Formula
Lines and Circles
2 4, 5, 6 Lines and linear modeling
Intersections
Functions and graphs Multipart functions
37, 8, 9 Quadratic functions and modeling
Quadratic optimization
Function composition
Shifting, dilation and reflection
4 11 Inverse functions

Midterm Exam One
5 12, 13, 14 Linear-to-linear rational functions
Angular measure
Circular motion
6 15, 16, 17 Trigonometry
Trigonometric functions
Sinusoidal functions
7 18, 19, 20 Inverse trigonometric functions
Sinusoidal equations and modeling
Exponential functions
8 21 Logarithms

Midterm Exam Two
9 22, 23 Parametric equations
Uniform linear motion
10   Review

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