Moderator Edit: The original question provoked some discussion which, while off-topic, has the potential for interesting debate and further discussion. I have therefore moved all off-topic replies to this thread. Please feel free to continue the discussion - in this thread.

If you have something to contribute regarding the solution to the question that started all this, don't post it here. Post it at Limit : ln-expo.


No, most precalculus books cover limits.

Really!
How many Pre-Calculus textbooks have you reviewed?
More importantly, how many pre-calculus course descriptions have you seen?
I know that at publisher’s insistence, authors are adding more topics to their textbooks.
But I can tell you, as someone who has reviewed many programs, it is rare for a course in Pre-Calculus in the US to include limits.

Please do not think that I think that limits ought not be part of a Pre-Calculus course.
Because I do think that limits should be part of a Pre-Calculus course.
But I will say, I worry a great deal the way limits may be taught.

I believe I had the Larson/Hostler/Edwards precalculus book. And we covered limits.

One textbook does not set a trend.

All solutions offered so far use calculus. By definition, a solution that uses differentiation (that is, calculus) is not a pre-calculus solution. And if such a solution is required or acceptable, then the question is not a pre-calculus question.

I was hoping that the OP might clarify the situation ....

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I have reviewed a number of textbooks over the years, and some of the ones that include limits are the following:

Precalculus, 4/E, Blitzer (Pearson)
Precalculus, 8/E, Sullivan & Sullivan (Pearson)
Precalculus: Graphical, Numeric, Algebraic, 7/E, Demana/Waits/Foley/Kennedy (Pearson)
Precalculus Functions and Graphs: A Graphing Approach, 5/E, Larson/Hostetler/Edwards (Cengage)
Contemporary Precalculus: A Graphing Approach, 5/E, Hungerford/Shaw (Cengage)
Precalculus: Mathematics for Calculus, 5/E, Stewart/Redlin/Watson (Cengage)
Advanced Mathematics: Precalculus with Discrete Mathematics and Data Analysis, 2003, Brown (Holt McDougal)
Holt Precalculus: A Graphing Approach, 2006, ???? (Holt McDougal)

And there are more with the title "Precalculus with Limits," many of which are authored by the same authors listed above; I didn't include those. So a number of books include limits, but whether teachers cover it in their precalculus courses is a different story. (I didn't learn limits in my precalculus class in high school, and I currently don't cover it with my students.)


01

Hi everybody...

The problem is that the calculus section is in the university level.
This guy is from Algeria, and as far as I can remember, it is quite similar to the French stuff.
And in France, we study limits and derivatives in high school (from the penultimate year of high school more exactly).
And I noticed he didn't translate some words, that were left in French.

So - either he doesn't know the difference, - either he believed that since it's high school stuff, it should go to pre-calculus.
Or both possibilities :P

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well I think this calculus or precalculus thing depends on the country. I myself never heard the name pre-calculus. First time when I got acquainted with calculus my first chapter was number system,2)functions,3)limit and continuity,4)existence of limit and continuity,5) differentiation etc (also had integration,finding area, minima-maxima, roll's theorem etc) and in university first calculus topic was partial differentiation.differentiation and integration were suppose to be school basics.