Pre/Cal/5/2/T

PRE CALCULUS
TOPIC: EXPONENTS AND LOGARITHMIC
FUNCTIONS

Specific Objectives: Student will be able to understand the concept of graphing

logarithms and exponential functions.

What they already know: Student know about basics of graphing, finding the values of
logarithms and exponents and solving exponential equations.

Key Concept: Graphing logarithms and exponential functions.

Plan of action: Tutor will explain the concepts of:

• Graphing logarithmic functions

• Domain and Range of logarithmic function
• Graphing an exponential functions

With the help of solved examples:

Suggested examples:

Graphing a logarithm:

There are few steps in graphing logarithms:

Step 1: Use the definition of logs shown above to write the equation in exponential form.
Step 2: Plug in values for y (NOT x) to find some ordered pairs.
Step 3: Plot points.
Step 4: Draw a curve connecting the points

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Example 1: Graph the function y = f(x) = log3 x

Solution :
Step 1: Use the definition of logs shown above to write the equation in
exponential form.

First, we need to write in exponential form, just like we practiced in examples 1

and 2.
Looks like the base is 3, the exponent is y, and the log will be set = to x:

*Rewriting in exponential form

Step 2: Plug in values for y (NOT x) to find some ordered pairs.

I have found that the best way to do this is to do it the same each time. In other
words, put in the same values for y each time and then find it's corresponding x
value for the given function.
The first two columns just show what values we are going to plug in for y.
The last three columns show the corresponding values for x and y for the given
function.

x y y (x, y)

-2 -2 (1/9, -2)

-1 -1 (1/3, -1)

0 0 (1, 0)
1 1 (3, 1)
2 2 (9, 2)

Step 3: Plot points.

Step 4: Draw a curve.

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Graphs of exponential function:

The exponential function with base b is defined by

Example 2: Sketch the graph of y = 2x.

We could take some typical values by substituting in the given exponential function which
would result in the following table.

x f (x) = y
-2

-1
0
1
2
3

In the next step we plot the above values in a graph and join the points as follows:

Most exponential graphs resemble this same shape.

This graph is very, very small on its left side and is extremely close to the x-axis. As the graph
progresses to the right, it starts to grow faster and faster and shoots off the top of the graph
very quickly, as seen at the right.

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Example 3: The velocity of a certain falling object (which is being affected by air
resistance) is given by:

v = 95(1 − e-0.1t) where v is in km/h and t is the time of fall in seconds.

Sketch the graph of the falling object.

Solution: A table of values gives us:

t 0 10 20 30 40 50
v 0 60.1 82.1 90.3 93.3 94.4

The sketch is:

If we take larger values of t, the velocity does not go over 95. In this case, the terminal
velocity of the object is 95 km/h.

Domain of Logarithmic Function:

Example 4: Find the domain of the function given by : f(x)=logx2

Solution:
By definition of logarithmic function, we know that base of logarithmic function is a positive
number excluding x =1.
x>0,x≠1
Hence, domain of the given function is :

Solution is Domain=(0,∞) − {1} or, Domain=(0,1) ∪ {1,∞}

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