How to Pass MATH 1113 (Precalculus) at UGA

MATH 1113 is the foundation course for almost every quantitative track at UGA — calculus, statistics, chemistry, physics, economics, business, and most of the sciences. It is also the course where students most often discover that their high school math preparation has gaps they didn’t know existed.

The course is not designed to be a weeder, but it functions like one for a specific reason: it uses a flipped, hybrid, ALEKS-driven format that punishes passive learning. If you walk into MATH 1113 expecting a traditional lecture course, you will fall behind in the first three weeks.

What MATH 1113 Actually Is

MATH 1113 is a 3-credit precalculus course covering:

• Functions and their properties (domain, range, transformations, composition, inverse)
• Polynomial and rational functions
• Exponential and logarithmic functions
• Trigonometric functions and identities
• Analytic trigonometry (solving equations, sum and difference identities)
• Systems of equations (introductory)
• Conic sections (in some sections)

The textbook is Precalculus by Julie Miller and Donna Gerkin (McGraw Hill), with a UGA-specific edition that includes ALEKS 360 access. MATH 1113 is the prerequisite or corequisite for MATH 2200, MATH 2250, CHEM 1211, and most physics, statistics, and quantitative business prerequisites — meaning a poor grade here cascades into delays for chemistry, calculus, economics, and engineering tracks. Recovery typically takes a full semester.

Why the Format Catches Students Off Guard

Most MATH 1113 sections at UGA use a flipped, hybrid format:

• You watch pre-class videos and complete a worksheet before every class meeting
• Class time is used for problem-solving, group work, and discussion — not lecture
• Homework is delivered through ALEKS, which uses adaptive questioning
• Quizzes (in-class and take-home) supplement the homework
• “Basic skills tests” verify that you’ve mastered prerequisite skills

This format works extremely well for students who do the pre-class work and treat class as practice. It works terribly for students who try to study the way they did in high school — passively listening to lecture and cramming before exams. There is no lecture to be passive in.

The result is a bimodal grade distribution. Students who adapt to the flipped model often earn A’s; students who don’t adapt end up in the C-D-F range. There isn’t much middle ground.

Why Students Struggle

The pre-class work is non-negotiable. Skipping the videos and worksheets means you arrive at class unable to do the in-class problems, which means you fall behind on the conceptual layer that the homework assumes you already have. By week four, you can’t catch up without a full reset.

ALEKS adapts to your weak points — and exposes them. ALEKS will drill you on the topics you don’t know. This feels punishing, but it’s the system working correctly. Students who try to game ALEKS by guessing or skipping rarely pass the underlying assessments.

High school precalculus left gaps. If you took precalc in high school but never fully mastered logarithms, function transformations, or unit-circle trig, MATH 1113 will surface those gaps. Most students discover the gap mid-semester when it’s hardest to fix.

Trigonometry is the single biggest stumbling block. The unit circle, identities, and analytic trig come late in the semester for many sections — right when students are tired and exam-fatigued. Students who don’t actively memorize the unit circle fall apart on the trig exam.

Word problems test concept fluency. ALEKS and exams both ask you to translate words into equations. Students who can solve cleanly-stated equations but freeze on word problems usually have a translation gap, not an algebra gap.

The Exam Structure

Most MATH 1113 sections follow this pattern:

• 3 to 4 unit exams (often called “tests”)
• A cumulative final exam (often heavily weighted)
• ALEKS homework worth a meaningful percentage of the grade
• In-class quizzes and take-home quizzes
• Basic skills tests (pass/fail mastery checks)
• Pre-class assignments (small but additive)

The cumulative final is the place where students who maintained a B average all semester can earn an A by mastering cumulative review — and where students who limped to a C can recover to a B with a strong finish.

The Study System That Works

1. Do the pre-class work the day before, not the morning of. Watching the videos at full speed at 8:55 AM does not constitute studying. The pre-class work is the foundation of the entire course. Build it into your weekly schedule and protect that block.

2. Use ALEKS as a diagnostic, not a chore. When ALEKS marks a topic as “needs work,” that is information. Don’t grind through it resentfully — figure out what specifically you don’t understand and fix the underlying skill. The ALEKS knowledge check exists for a reason.

3. Memorize the unit circle in week one of the trig unit, not the night before the exam. If you can produce sin, cos, and tan for every multiple of π/6 and π/4 in under 30 seconds, you have eliminated the single biggest source of trig errors on UGA’s exams. This is a one-week investment that pays off for the rest of your math career.

4. Build a “common errors” list as you go. Every time you make a mistake on ALEKS or a quiz, write down the error and the correct method on a single tracking sheet. Review the sheet before every exam. Most exam errors are repeats of errors you’ve already made — the sheet catches the pattern.

5. Practice word problems separately from skill problems. Skill problems test mechanics; word problems test translation. Spending an hour on skill problems and zero on word problems guarantees a word-problem-shaped hole in your exam score.

What to Do If You’re Already Behind

If you’re past week six and your grade is sliding, the recoverable path looks like this:

• Run the math. Most syllabi make recovery possible with a strong cumulative final, but you have to know the exact threshold. Calculate it before deciding whether to push or withdraw.
• Identify whether the issue is precalculus content or pre-precalculus content. The fix is different. If the issue is foundation — algebra, factoring, exponents — working harder on current material won’t help. You have to backfill.
• Decide between W and grinding through. If you withdraw, plan immediately for retaking — losing MATH 1113 cascades into delays for everything else. The withdrawal deadline at UGA is roughly two weeks after the semester midpoint.
• If you stick, get diagnostic help quickly. The longer the foundation gap goes unaddressed, the more new material gets built on it incorrectly.

How MATH 1113 Connects to Your Scholarship

MATH 1113 is on the approved STEM weighted course directory for HOPE and Zell Miller. A grade of B, C, or D earns an additional 0.5 weight in the calculated HOPE GPA — meaning a B counts as 3.5, a C as 2.5, and a D as 1.5. This can be a meaningful tool for students working to maintain or recover Zell Miller. The full mechanics are in the HOPE and Zell Miller GPA guide, and if you’ve already lost the scholarship, the Zell Miller recovery guide walks through the math in detail.

When to Get Help

MATH 1113 is one of the courses where a few hours of diagnostic-first tutoring can completely change the trajectory. The reason: most struggles are foundational, not topical. A tutor who can pinpoint where your foundation broke (factoring? exponent rules? function notation? trig?) saves you from grinding through the wrong material.

Rainwater Tutoring specializes in exactly this kind of diagnostic work. We test where the gap actually is, then build from that point — not from where the syllabus is. For MATH 1113 students, this is usually 2 to 4 sessions of foundation repair followed by ongoing weekly support through the semester.