Long Distance BOB....Will You Accept The Conic Charges?

LOL well ok, it's not really long distance. But I just came back from Kenora so I thought that would be appropriate. It's great to be back home (although I do miss the bus and the hotel a bit).

Man this unit just zoomed by! It's making me realize that in a couple weeks, I, along with the rest of us grade 12 math takers, will be taking the provincial exam for math. (I'm kinda nervous but I think I'll pull it off. :D)

I'll have to admit that at first, Conics sounded really intimidating. For me, it was because we had to deal with graphing parabolas/circles/hyperbolas/ellipses and see the patterns that accompany them and I really dislike parabolas and graphing them. I'm more of a problem solver and equation person. I guess as the unit went on, a lot of the stuff came pretty easy to me and the unit became easier. I learned to recognize the patterns easily and pull off a "Matrix"-esque move in math. We all learned how to do that didn't we? I think that's pretty awesome.

The easiest part of this unit was learning the different patterns and remembering what stood for what in each equation. I may not remember a lot of things, but for some reason, I do remember things relating to math fairly well. I also felt that how and why the equations worked was pretty interesting. 8)

The hardest part of this unit was the word problems. It's only because I end up thinking about the wrong things, but then again that might just be a coincidence. Hopefully, with the practice I took today with those types of problems, I'll be able to conquer them with ease. Graphing wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but it was a pain (but that's just me being lazy xD).

I feel that there's only a couple things I need to remember for this test. One of these things being the pictures relating to the parabola/circle/ellipse/hyperbola showing how each parameter relates to the other. The second of these things being the equations for each of the conic chapes.

Parabola:
(x-h)²=4p(y-k) [vertical]
(y-k)²=4p(x-h) [horizontal]
(h,k)=Vertex
p=distance from vertex to directrix or vertex to focus point

Circle:
(x-h)²+(y-k)²=r²
r=radius
(h,k)=center

Ellipse:
[(x-h)²/a²]+[(y-k)²/b²]=1 {horizontal}
[(y-k)²/a²]+[(x-h)²/b²]=1 {vertical}
a=semimajor axis
b=semiminor axis
(h,k)=center

Hyperbola:
[(x-h)²/a²]-[(y-k)²/b²]=1 {horizontal}
[(y-k)²/a²]-[(x-h)²/b²]=1 {vertical}
a= transverse axis
b= conjugate axis
(h,k)=center

If I remember all this stuff, I think I'll do fine. I really am not too worried about this test.
Well, I guess that's all? I will see you all tomorrow! If you ahven't seen the intro to our (Dion, Mary, me) DEV yet, you can view it by clicking the link in the previous post (which should be very short :D). Hopefully, our DEV will be able to fulfill your expectations after watching the intro.

pc

~jayp~