Pre-calculus is a bunch of crap

[YankeesMD]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Search for patrickjmt on youtube. In higher math related things, he is really good.

Will do. Also looking at lectures from professors at schools like Yale/MIT/Berkeley.

Very True, If a Calc book was 10 chapters, A and B would be 4 apeice with C being the last two.

I'm in AB and we finished the curriculum with a full month left so we've basically covered all of AB and half of the BC topics. Only things left are series/sequences and polar coordinates which would be one chapter worth I guess.

 

[mehc012]

Taking both AB and BC is extremely redundant and a huge waste of time.

Huh...I enjoyed both, got a bunch of AP credit for them, and tested out of all of the intro classes at my top 5 school which didn't accept AP credit for almost ANYthing...so yeah, I didn't find it to be redundant (our teacher didn't repeat anything) OR a waste of time.

 

[YankeesMD]

Huh...I enjoyed both, got a bunch of AP credit for them, and tested out of all of the intro classes at my top 5 school which didn't accept AP credit for almost ANYthing...so yeah, I didn't find it to be redundant (our teacher didn't repeat anything) OR a waste of time.

Must have gone super slow then. I took AB and we did all the AB topics in 3/4 of a school year and 1/2 or so of BC in the remaining 1/4 of a year. I guess in your school doing it over 2 years gives you a better understanding since you don't have to rush through stuff but I feel like kids would be kind of bored taking a full year to do just the BC topics since they make up less than half of the AP exam (the rest overlaps with AB). I don't think its worth making sophomores take pre-calc unless they're really really good at math.

Just my opinion though.

 

[mehc012]

Must have gone super slow then. I took AB and we did all the AB topics in 3/4 of a school year and 1/2 or so of BC in the remaining 1/4 of a year. I guess in your school doing it over 2 years gives you a better understanding since you don't have to rush through stuff but I feel like kids would be kind of bored taking a full year to do just the BC topics since they make up less than half of the AP exam (the rest overlaps with AB). I don't think its worth making sophomores take pre-calc unless they're really really good at math.

Just my opinion though.

I dunno, we had something like a >80% 4+ rate on both, so they were doing something right! The last month of each school year was AP kickball where all AP classes played kickball against each other because the exams were significantly before our school term ended, so . I got out of it with 11 5's in 2 yrs, so I can't complain!

Besides, even if you did AB + ½BC, that wouldn't be sufficient for the BC exam, and the next year would be incomplete, so there's no advantage to rushing it...it'll still take 2 class years to finish all of BC, except that if you do ½BC first, the next year is really boring.

 

[YankeesMD]

The last month of each school year was AP kickball where all AP classes played kickball against each other because the exams were significantly before our school term ended, so .

Haha I wish we did more fun stuff like that. Last year my APUSH class played kickball against the AP Euro class but that was the only time I've done something fun like that in any of my AP classes. We should have had an AB vs. BC game this year.

Besides, even if you did AB + ½BC, that wouldn't be sufficient for the BC exam, and the next year would be incomplete, so there's no advantage to rushing it...it'll still take 2 class years to finish all of BC, except that if you do ½BC first, the next year is really boring.

Well, I'm in calc AB which is designed to prepare us for the AB exam. Any BC topic is extra stuff my teacher is throwing in there for the kids who are going on to Calc II in college. Kids take either AB or BC here depending on their grade in pre-calc. Since there is only one BC class that caps at 25, you needed a 95 or higher in pre-calc to take BC. The BC class does all of AB and BC obviously to take the BC exam.

Idk I'm just really used to high school going Geometry --> Algebra 2/Trig --> PreCalc --> AB or BC and your school's method is blowing my mind 😛

I'm assuming they had you guys take Geometry in 8th then?

 

[mehc012]

Haha I wish we did more fun stuff like that. Last year my APUSH class played kickball against the AP Euro class but that was the only time I've done something fun like that in any of my AP classes. We should have had an AB vs. BC game this year.




Well, I'm in calc AB which is designed to prepare us for the AB exam. Any BC topics are extra stuff my teacher is throwing in there for the kids who are going on to Calc II in college. Kids take either AB or BC here depending on their grade in pre-calc. Since there is only one BC class that caps at 25, you needed a 95 or higher in pre-calc to take BC. The BC class does all of AB and BC obviously to take the BC exam.

Idk I'm just really used to high school going Geometry --> Algebra 2/Trig --> PreCalc --> AB or BC and your school's method is blowing my mind 😛

I'm assuming they had you guys take Geometry in 8th then?

Yup...6th was a combined 6/7/8th grade math, 7th was Alg I, 8th was Geo (and Alg II for the nerds), 9th Alg II, 10th Precalc, 11th AB, and 12th BC. We end up with 3 calc AP grades - 1 AB from AB, 1 AB from BC, and 1 BC from BC. Thus 3/11 of my AP grades were for calculus.

As for kickball...well, we weren't allowed to take APs until Jr year. Most of us were in at least 4 each year, so there were a LOT of classes with nothing to do post-exam (our district allowed us to skip finals if we took the AP). Once the AP exams were over, all AP classes would go outside, and each teacher would keep score of how they did against the others.