Math Primer Exercises

Math Primer Exercises

Frank Luna
www.gameinstitute.com
Saturday, February 12, 2005

These are exercises for the Game Institute Math Primer seminar. Because there are no
examinations for seminars, it is recommended that you be able to complete the following
problems before considering yourself done with the seminar. Answers are provided in
Appendix B, but not solutions. If you need help on the solutions, then consult with your
instructor. Appendix A provided a more in depth discussion of the quadratic equation.

For the following problems, give your answers in the most reduced form.

1 Algebra

Expand the following expressions.

( x + 1) ( x − 1)
2 2
1. 2.

3. ( x − 1)( x + 1) 4. ( x + 3)
3

5. ( x − 2 )( x + 3) 6. ( x − 2 )( x + 3)( x − 1)

Factor the following expressions.

7. 2 x 2 − 8 x 8. x 2 + x

9. 5 x 3 + 10 x 2 − 5 x 10. x 2 + 2 x − 3

11. x 2 − 6 x + 5 12. x 2 − 4 x + 4

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Math Primer Exercises

Put the following expressions over a common denominator.

1 5+3 1 8 3
13. + 14. + −
2 (3 + 2) 4 3 2

15.
1
+
5+ x x ( x − 2)
16. +
x ( x + 2) 5 2 ( x + 1)

( x − 1)( 7 x + 6 ) 7 1 5+ x
+ −
7 x2 + 3
17. − 18.
( x − 1)( x + 1) ( x + 1)
2
x ( x + 1) ( x + 2 )2

Solve the following equations for x.

19. 2 x + 7 = 15 20. 2 x + 10 = 3 x − 15

1 5 2 3x + 2
21. + =0 22. − =0
x ( x + 2) ( x − 3) ( x + 2 )( x − 3)

23. ( x − 4)
3
=0 24. ( x − 12 )( x + 7 ) = 0

1  3 
2
3
25. − x 2 + 2 x + 5 = 0 26. 2  x −  +  x −  − 5 = 0
2  2  2

27.
1
+
5+ x
=0 x ( x − 2)
28. + =0
x ( x + 2) 5 2 ( x + 1)

2 Functions
1. Evaluate the following:

a. 82

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Math Primer Exercises

( −8 )
2
b.
c. 32
( −3)
2
d.

What do you conclude?

2. Solve the following equation for x, where k is just a constant: x 2 = k + 1 .

3. Let f ( x) = 2 x ; evaluate f (−3), f ( −2 ) , f ( −1) , f ( 0 ) , f (1) , f ( 2 ) , and f ( 3) .

4. Solve for x (you will need a calculator with a base-ten logarithm function):10 x = 55 .

5. Solve for x (you will need a calculator with a base-e logarithm function): e 2 x = 100 .

6. Let f ( x) = ln ( x ) , x > 0 ; evaluate f ( 0.25 ) , f ( 0.5 ) , f (1) , f ( 2 ) , f ( 4 ) and f ( 8 ) .

7. Solve for x: ln ( 3 x ) = 1, x > 0 .

8. Solve for x: log 2 ( 5 x ) = 12, x > 0 .

9. Find the inverse of f ( x ) = 4 x − 1 .

10. Find the inverse of f ( x ) = −3 x + 7 .

3 Geometry
1
1. Graph f ( x) = x − 2 and f ( x) = −2 x + 5 .
2

2. Find the equation of the line that passes through the points (-1, -2) and (2, 4).

3. Find the equation of the line that has slope –2 and intercepts the y-axis at y = 1.

1
4. Find the intersection between the lines y = x − 3 and y = − x + 6 .
2

5. Find the intersection between the lines y = x + 1 and y = 3 .

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Math Primer Exercises

4 Trigonometry
1. Suppose that the length of an arc on a circle is 20 units, and suppose that the angle
corresponding to this arc is 1.5 radians. What is the radius of the circle the arc lies on?

2. Suppose you have a right triangle. Suppose that the adjacent side is 9 units in length
and that the hypotenuse side is 25 units in length. What is the length of the opposite
side?

3. Suppose you have two similar right triangles. The first has an adjacent length of 1 and
an unknown opposite length y. The second has an adjacent length 12 and opposite length
7. Find y.

4. Suppose that you have a right triangle where one angle is a 30-degree angle. Also
assume that the side opposite this angle has a length of 5 units. What is the length of the
hypotenuse?

5. Suppose that you have a right triangle where one angle is a 45-degree angle. Also
assume that the hypotenuse has a length of 13 units. What is the length of the adjacent
side?

Appendix A The Quadratic Equation

Recall that the standard form of a quadratic equation is given by:

y = ax 2 + bx + c .

Here, a, b, and c are called the coefficients of the quadratic equation. And geometrically,
this describes a parabola—Figure 1. Often we want to find the values of x where the
parabola intersects the x-axis; that is, find x such that y = ax 2 + bx + c = 0 . These values
of x are called the roots of the quadratic equation.

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Math Primer Exercises

Figure 1: Parabola y = 2( x − 3) − 4 with a 2-unit scale, a horizontal translation of 3 units, and a

2

vertical translation of –4 units. The roots are approximately 1.58 and 4.41.

Conveniently, a mechanical formula exists that allows us to find the roots of a

quadratic equation (i.e., an equation of the form ax 2 + bx + c = 0 ). This formula, called
the quadratic formula, is as follows:

− b ± b 2 − 4ac
x=
2a

Let us now derive this formula.

Quadratic Formula Derivation

Our goal is to start with ax 2 + bx + c = 0 and apply algebraic techniques to get x

in terms of the coefficients a, b, and c. Note that each step in this process we will only be
rewriting the equation into an equivalent form—we never change the problem.

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Math Primer Exercises

Starting with:

(1) ax 2 + bx + c = 0

Now divide the equation by a:

b c
(2) x2 + x+ =0
a a

Subtract c a from both sides:

b c
(3) x2 + x=−
a a

Now we do a little trick called completing the square; we are going to take half of b a ,
square it, and then add it to both sides of the equation. Since we add it to both sides we
are not changing the equation, so we can always do that.

b b2 c b2
(4) x + x+
2
=− +
( 2a ) a ( 2a ) 2
2
a

b b2  b  b 
Observe that x 2 + x+ = x+  x +  , which you can verify by “foiling.”
( 2a )  2a   2a 
2
a
Moreover, we can put the right-hand-side of (4) under a common denominator. Then we
can rewrite (4) as follows:

2
 b  b 2 − 4ac
(5)  x +  =
 2a  4a 2

At this point we want to take the square root of the left-hand-side of the equation.
However, when we take a square root, we get two possible answers since ( x ) = x 2 but
2

also ( − x ) = x 2 . (I.e., x 2 = k ⇒ x = ± k .) So since the left-hand-side is squared, we

2

don’t know if the square root of the right-hand-side is positive or negative, since the
square of either could give the left-hand-side. Thus taking the square root of both sides
of (5) we get two equations:

b b 2 − 4ac b b 2 − 4ac
(6) x+ = or x+ =−
2a 2a 2a 2a

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Math Primer Exercises

The absolute value comes from z 2 = z , and this is easy to see when you note that the
square of a number is always positive, so z 2 is always positive and thus the square root
of z 2 is also positive, even if z was negative. (E.g., z = −3 , then
( −3)
2
= 9 = 3 = −3 .)
If a > 0, then |2a| = 2a, and we can subtract b ( 2a ) from both sides and put under
a common denominator to get:

−b + b 2 − 4ac −b − b 2 − 4ac
(7) x= or x=
2a 2a

If a < 0, then |2a| = -2a, and we still end up getting (7) except with the two equations
swapped. So essentially we do not need to worry about the absolute value cases.
Finally, both equations in (7) are typically written in the following compact form:

− b ± b 2 − 4ac
x=
2a

Which is the formula we wanted to derive. In other words, we have developed a formula
which gives us the solutions to ax 2 + bx + c = 0 given the coefficients a, b, and c of the
quadratic equation.

Examples

To be sure that you understand how this equation works we will do some examples.

Example 1: Find the roots of the following quadratic equation: x 2 − x − 6 .

Using the quadratic formula we have:

− b ± b 2 − 4ac 1 ± 1 − 4(1)(− 6 ) 1 ± 25 1 ± 5
x= = = =
2a 2 ⋅1 2 2

So, x1 = 3 and x 2 = −2 .

Example 2: Find the roots of the following quadratic equation: x 2 − 2 x + 1 .

Using the quadratic formula we have:

− b ± b 2 − 4ac 2 ± 4 − 4(1)(1) 2 ± 0
x= = = =1
2a 2 ⋅1 2

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Math Primer Exercises

So, x1 = x 2 = 1 .

Example 3: Find the roots of the following quadratic equation: x 2 + 2 x + 5 .

Using the quadratic formula we have:

− b ± b 2 − 4ac − 2 ± 4 − 4(1)(5) − 2 ± − 16
x= = =
2a 2 ⋅1 2

Recalling that i 2 = −1 we obtain:

− 2 ± − 16 − 2 ± 16i 2 − 2 ± 4i
= = = −1 ± 2i
2 2 2

So, x1 = −1 + 2i and x 2 = −1 − 2i .

Observe from example three that the roots to the quadratic equation can contain
imaginary numbers; a number that includes both a real and an imaginary component is
termed a complex number.

Appendix B Answers
1 Algebra

1. x2 + 2 x + 1
2. x2 − 2 x + 1
3. x2 − 1
4. x3 + 9 x 2 + 27 x + 27
5. x2 + x − 6
6. x3 − 7 x + 6
7. 2x ( x − 4)
8. x ( x + 1)
(
9. 5 x x 2 + 2 x − 1 )
10. ( x − 1)( x + 3)
11. ( x − 5 )( x − 1)
12. ( x − 2 )
2

13. 21 10
14. 17 12

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Math Primer Exercises

x2 + 6x + 2
15.
x2 + 2x
2 x 2 + 7 x − 10
16.
10 x + 10
−1
17.
x + 2x + 1
2

−6 x 4 + 3x 3 + 26 x 2 + 25 x + 4
18.
x 4 + 5 x3 + 8 x 2 + 4 x
19. x=4
20. x = 25
21. x = −1 3
22. x=2
23. x=4
24. x = 12 or x = −7
25. x = − 14 + 2 or x = 14 + 2
41 + 5 − 41 + 5
26. x= or x =
4 4
27. x = − 7 − 3 or x = 7 − 3
− 129 − 7 129 − 7
28. x = or x =
4 4

2 Functions

1a. 8
1b. 8
1c. 3
1d. 3

Conclusion: a2 = a .

2. x = ± k + 1

1 1 1
3. , , ,1, 2, 4,8
8 4 2
4. 1.740362689
5. 2.302585092
6. –1.3862, -0.69314, 0, 0.69314, 1.3862, 2.0794
7. x = e 3
8. x = 4096 5
1 1
9. f −1 ( x ) = x +
4 4

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Math Primer Exercises

1 7
10. f −1 ( x ) = − x +
3 3

3 Geometry

1.

2. y = 2 x
3. y = −2 x + 1
4. (6, 0)
5. (2, 3)

4 Trigonometry

1. 13.333333
2. 4 34
3. 0.583333
4. 10
5. 13 2

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