All High School Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #2 : Using The Chain Rule
What is the first derivative of ?
To solve for the first derivative, we're going to use the chain rule. The chain rule says that when taking the derivative of a nested function, your answer is the derivative of the outside times the derivative of the inside.
Mathematically, it would look like this:
Plug in our equations.
Example Question #3 : Using The Chain Rule
For this problem we need to use the chain rule:
Example Question #2 : Using The Chain Rule
Find the derivative of the following function:
Use -substitution so that .
Then the function becomes .
By the chain rule, .
We calculate each term using the power rule:
Plug in :
Example Question #1 : Specific Derivatives
An ellipse is represented by the following equation:
What is the slope of the curve at the point (3,2)?
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It would be difficult to differentiate this equation by isolating . Luckily, we don't have to. Use to represent the derivative of with respect to and follow the chain rule.
(Remember, is the derivative of with respect to , although it usually doesn't get written out because it is equal to 1. We'll write it out this time so you can see how implicit differentiation works.)
Now we need to isolate by first putting all of these terms on the same side:
This is the equation for the derivative at any point on the curve. By substituting in (3, 2) from the original question, we can find the slope at that particular point:
Example Question #1 : Understanding Derivatives Of Exponents
Find the derivative for
The derivative must be computed using the product rule. Because the derivative of brings a down as a coefficient, it can be combined with to give
Example Question #61 : Derivatives
Give the instantaneous rate of change of the function at .
The instantaneous rate of change of at is , so we will find and evaluate it at .
for any positive , so
Example Question #3 : Understanding Derivatives Of Exponents
What is ?
Therefore,
for any real , so , and
Example Question #4 : Understanding Derivatives Of Exponents
What is ?
Therefore,
for any positive , so , and
Example Question #62 : Derivatives
Find the derivative of the following function:
The derivative of is. It is probably best to memorize this fact (the proof follows from the difference quotient definition of a derivative).
Our function
the factor of 3 does not change when we differentiate, therefore the answer is
Example Question #63 : Derivatives
The derivative of a sine function does not follow the power rule. It is one that should be memorized.
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