Chapter 3

Cementing the Building Blocks of Pre-Calculus Functions

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Identifying, graphing, and translating parent functions

Bullet Defining even, odd, and one-to-one functions

Bullet Comparing quadratic, cubic, and their root functions

Bullet Breaking down and graphing rational functions

Maps of the world identify cities as dots and use lines to represent the roads that connect them. Modern country and city maps use a grid system to help users find locations easily. If you can’t find the place you’re looking for, you look at an index, which gives you a letter and number. This information narrows down your search area, after which you can easily figure out how to get where you’re going.

You can take this idea and use it for your own pre-calculus purposes through the process of graphing. But instead of naming cities, the dots name points on the coordinate. A point on this plane relates two numbers to each other; these are called coordinates. The whole coordinate plane really is just a big computer, because it’s based on input and output, with you as the operating system. This idea of input ...

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