## Pre-Calc Students Kick Butt More Than Projected

Good grief, I haven’t seen this in a Pre-Calculus class before:

That’s on my last test (Trig. review, basically). If I put up the bars it wouldn’t even remotely resemble a bell curve.

I know it wasn’t cake either, because I gave a similar test last year with more typical results.

Most missed questions (at least partially):

1. Given tan(x)=-1, what are two possible values for x?

2. Explain why tan(x) has asymptotes at $\frac{\pi}{2}$ and $\frac{3\pi}{2}$.

3. Graph: $3tan(\frac{1}{2}x-\frac{\pi}{4})$

4. Determine the angle between the diagonal of a cube and the diagonal of its base.

### 2 Responses

1. It doesn’t seem too difficult either…

just as a side note, for number one, I’m assuming it’s restricted from 0 to 2pi…

though I bet for 1 they forgot to consider the third quadrant angle…

2. It was not restricted as such, no. They could have just added $2\pi$ once they found an answer, but since most questions of that type do restrict from 0 to $2\pi$ that never occurred to them.

Since it was the tangent of -1, you mean second and fourth quadrant, I’m guessing?