Week 8 — Midterm Review & Exam

Welcome to your Week 8 Start Here page.

Why this matters

Naming the move before you start is how a nurse checks a dosage calculation before giving it and how a small-business owner decides whether a pricing question needs one equation or two. This week turns that habit on all of Weeks 1 to 7.

In plain language

This week you look back at the first seven weeks and see that every problem asked you for one kind of work. We call that work the problem's core move (the one job a problem asks you to do, such as simplify, solve, or factor). You also learn one new habit, choosing a method (reading a problem and naming its move before you write a step). The clue you read is the problem cue (a feature of how the problem is written, such as an equals sign or a squared variable). The midterm covers the same seven weeks, and the habit carries you through the second half of the course.

• Already covered: rules and solving, then functions, lines, systems, polynomials, and quadratic equations (Weeks 1 to 7).
• This week: a review by core move, choosing a method, and the midterm.
• How they connect: each earlier skill becomes one move you can name.
• Where we're going next: Week 9, Quadratic Functions & Their Graphs.

Focus

Every problem from Weeks 1 to 7 asks for one core move. Can you read the cue, name the move, solve, and check?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] solve and check one fresh problem for each of the six core moves
• [ ] solve one quadratic equation by four methods and predict its real solutions
• [ ] read a mixed problem's cue and name its core move before starting

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 8 (about 40 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Do the practice set (about 20 minutes) and the discussion (about 45 minutes).
3. Use the study guide and practice exam, then take the midterm.

This week's checkpoint: name the core move for x² = 49 and for 3x² − 12x = 0, then solve both and check.

You've got this

You have done every one of these moves before. Take them in order, and ask your instructor early if a step snags.

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