Technically a student coming into a Calculus class is supposed to know both Algebra and Trigonometry.

Unfortunately, the reality is often much different. Most students enter a Calculus class woefully
unprepared for both the algebra and the trig that is in a Calculus class. This is very unfortunate since
good algebra skills are absolutely vital to successfully completing any Calculus course and if your Calculus
course includes trig (as this one does) good trig skills are also important in many sections.

The intent of this chapter is to do a very cursory review of some algebra and trig skills that are vital to a
calculus course. This chapter does not include all the algebra and trig skills that are needed to be
successful in a Calculus course. It only includes those topics that most students are particularly deficient
in. For instance, factoring is also vital to completing a standard calculus class but is not included here as
it is assumed that if you are taking a Calculus course then you do know how to factor. For a more in
depth review you should check out the full set of Algebra notes at http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu.

Note that even though these topics are very important to a Calculus class I rarely cover all of them in the
actual class itself. We simply don’t have the time to do that. I do cover certain portions of this chapter in
class, but for the most part I leave it to the students to read this chapter on their own.

Here is a list of topics that are in this chapter.