Last Friday, it clicked! Everything sort of came into place. I'm really starting to understand the first unit, and am almost ready to retake the first test we had taken in this class! Plus, what we are learning now is starting to click into place as well. Finding the degrees and graphing polynomials is one of the easiest things I feel like we have learned so far. Here's a list of what to do for polynomials (finding the degree and drawing the graph):
1. Find the degree by adding all of the x's together from the equation. Say you have y= x(x+3)^2, then you would have an odd degree of 3.
2. Now to find out if the graph will be negative or positive, you must also look at the equation. If you have an equation that is positive (y= (3+x)(4+x)), then your graph is positive. If you have an equation that is negative (y= -(3+x)(4+x)), then your graph is negative.
3. Using that information you can find out if your graph is positive/negative and odd/even. Then, I always remember that graphs that are positive always end positive, and graphs that are negative always end negatively. I also remember this saying, "Your even if you like McDonald's and Wendy's, and your odd if you don't." Even degrees lead to "M" and "W" shaped graph lines.
4. By the way, don't totally forget about the individual powers of each of the x intercepts. You need to know each power of each intercept to know how to draw the line. If an intercept is to the power of 1, then the line goes straight through the intercept. If its to the power of an even number, then you "bounce" the line on the intercept. And if you have a power that is an odd number that is greater than 1, then you curve the line through the intercept.
5. Now you are ready to find the degree, find out if the graph is positive/negative and odd/even, and how to draw a graph of any polynomial!
No comments:
Post a Comment