IB Math - Math AI vs Math AA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I forgot to mention that I'm posting this here because we're trying to figure out which courses would satisfy calculus requirements for certain universities.

If you want college credit similar to AP credit, only HL AA will count.
DD did SL AA, had to fulfill Calculus first semester but handled it just fine with SL AA background.
For engineering, I think your kid should take HL AA as SL AA may not be strong/advanced enough

Fortunately, we're not interested in college credit. We're trying to satisfy the minimum entry requirements coming from HS. Some schools expect to see one year of calculus in HS for STEM majors, however, she's only in Algebra 1 for 9th grade and the school doesn't allow acceleration. If she can go into AA HL in 11th grade, we're happy but didn't know if that was possible. Looks like that might not be an issue but I was comparing it to the non-IB math sequence.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I forgot to mention that I'm posting this here because we're trying to figure out which courses would satisfy calculus requirements for certain universities.

If you want college credit similar to AP credit, only HL AA will count.
DD did SL AA, had to fulfill Calculus first semester but handled it just fine with SL AA background.
For engineering, I think your kid should take HL AA as SL AA may not be strong/advanced enough

Fortunately, we're not interested in college credit. We're trying to satisfy the minimum entry requirements coming from HS. Some schools expect to see one year of calculus in HS for STEM majors, however, she's only in Algebra 1 for 9th grade and the school doesn't allow acceleration. If she can go into AA HL in 11th grade, we're happy but didn't know if that was possible. Looks like that might not be an issue but I was comparing it to the non-IB math sequence.

Thanks!

I don't see how you get from Algebra 1 in 9th to AA HL in 11th without either taking Geometry over the summer or doubling up on math in 10th. You pretty much need to have taken both Geometry and Algebra 2 (ideally with some Trig) to have sufficient foundation for AA HL. It's good you're focusing on this now; you'll probably have to push your school to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

Have you spoken to your child's school counselor? At our IB school, you cannot get to IB math unless you took algebra I in grade 8 or earlier, unless you are willing to take geometry during summer school. You have to have taken Algebra II before the IB sequence starts junior year.

Precalculus is probably a more realistic goal for senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to this curriculum overview (subject briefs), Analysis HL has 55 hours of calculus, and Applications HL has 41 hours.

https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/mathematics/

I’m surprised by how little instruction time IB classes have.

AP Calculus BC is 148 instruction hours.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-calculus-bc-planning-pacing-guide-dover-2015.pdf

Its truly shocking how bad IB is.

[Anonymous]

Yet students who have already taken Calc BC struggle like crazy in AA HL at my kid’s school. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yet students who have already taken Calc BC struggle like crazy in AA HL at my kid’s school. Go figure.

I call BS in this. How do you know what classes those students took, and how they are doing in their current classes? Seriously, just mind your own business, leave those students alone, and refrain from badmouthing them. What a Karen!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this curriculum overview (subject briefs), Analysis HL has 55 hours of calculus, and Applications HL has 41 hours.

https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/mathematics/

I’m surprised by how little instruction time IB classes have.

AP Calculus BC is 148 instruction hours.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-calculus-bc-planning-pacing-guide-dover-2015.pdf

Its truly shocking how bad IB is.

But the difference is that AP Calc BC is just teaching Calculus. AA HL is teaching calculus plus statistics and other foundational math, and requires 240 instruction hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this curriculum overview (subject briefs), Analysis HL has 55 hours of calculus, and Applications HL has 41 hours.

https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/mathematics/

I’m surprised by how little instruction time IB classes have.

AP Calculus BC is 148 instruction hours.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-calculus-bc-planning-pacing-guide-dover-2015.pdf

Its truly shocking how bad IB is.

But the difference is that AP Calc BC is just teaching Calculus. AA HL is teaching calculus plus statistics and other foundational math, and requires 240 instruction hours.

That’s why the integrated approach for advanced math classes sucks, and nobody else does it.

In two years of IB HL Analysis you’d do 55 hours of calculus and 33 hours of statistics. The rest is not advanced topics, it’s “foundational” concepts from precalculus, algebra and geometry that frankly should be mastered already.

Taking the AP route of Calculus BC and AP Statistics you get about 148 hours of instruction for each. The IB HL Analysis part of statistics only covers topics from the first half of AP Statistics, ie no sampling distributions or hypothesis testing etc.

People that plug the strength of the IB Math program should really look into it before giving advice to others. It is a bad curriculum.

[Anonymous]

It's a good curriculum, it's just not accelerated.
It can't compare to the path of students who start Algebra 2-3 years earlier and take 2-3 more years of math in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a good curriculum, it's just not accelerated.
It can't compare to the path of students who start Algebra 2-3 years earlier and take 2-3 more years of math in high school.

It’s a bad curriculum for strong math students interested in STEM majors. This is the problem with the one size fits all approach of the IB program, it just doesn’t work well for the top. AP is a la carte so there’s more flexibility to fit the needs of those students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet students who have already taken Calc BC struggle like crazy in AA HL at my kid’s school. Go figure.

I call BS in this. How do you know what classes those students took, and how they are doing in their current classes? Seriously, just mind your own business, leave those students alone, and refrain from badmouthing them. What a Karen!

Who hurt you? Geez.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this curriculum overview (subject briefs), Analysis HL has 55 hours of calculus, and Applications HL has 41 hours.

https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/mathematics/

I’m surprised by how little instruction time IB classes have.

AP Calculus BC is 148 instruction hours.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-calculus-bc-planning-pacing-guide-dover-2015.pdf

Its truly shocking how bad IB is.

But the difference is that AP Calc BC is just teaching Calculus. AA HL is teaching calculus plus statistics and other foundational math, and requires 240 instruction hours.

That’s why the integrated approach for advanced math classes sucks, and nobody else does it.

In two years of IB HL Analysis you’d do 55 hours of calculus and 33 hours of statistics. The rest is not advanced topics, it’s “foundational” concepts from precalculus, algebra and geometry that frankly should be mastered already.

Taking the AP route of Calculus BC and AP Statistics you get about 148 hours of instruction for each. The IB HL Analysis part of statistics only covers topics from the first half of AP Statistics, ie no sampling distributions or hypothesis testing etc.

People that plug the strength of the IB Math program should really look into it before giving advice to others. It is a bad curriculum.

? European schools do integrated math. Too many kids lack good foundational knowledge in math when they get up to higher level math.

In any case, OP's school doesn't have AP, so your post is moot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good curriculum, it's just not accelerated.
It can't compare to the path of students who start Algebra 2-3 years earlier and take 2-3 more years of math in high school.

It’s a bad curriculum for strong math students interested in STEM majors. This is the problem with the one size fits all approach of the IB program, it just doesn’t work well for the top. AP is a la carte so there’s more flexibility to fit the needs of those students.

You mean "pointy" , not "top".

Math is the easiest subject to learn independently, so it's pretty easy to crack open a book or an app to get a little ahead.
The top pointy math students don't learn math from AP. Most can't get accelerated enough in any school to match the pace they or their parents want.

But it is true that in IB world the solution to acceleration is starting the diploma a year early, and finishing high school a year early, instead of AP's "college courses in high school" to manipulate the college credit-counting scheme and then retaking core classes in college anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this curriculum overview (subject briefs), Analysis HL has 55 hours of calculus, and Applications HL has 41 hours.

https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/mathematics/

I’m surprised by how little instruction time IB classes have.

AP Calculus BC is 148 instruction hours.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-calculus-bc-planning-pacing-guide-dover-2015.pdf

Its truly shocking how bad IB is.

But the difference is that AP Calc BC is just teaching Calculus. AA HL is teaching calculus plus statistics and other foundational math, and requires 240 instruction hours.

That’s why the integrated approach for advanced math classes sucks, and nobody else does it.

In two years of IB HL Analysis you’d do 55 hours of calculus and 33 hours of statistics. The rest is not advanced topics, it’s “foundational” concepts from precalculus, algebra and geometry that frankly should be mastered already.

Taking the AP route of Calculus BC and AP Statistics you get about 148 hours of instruction for each. The IB HL Analysis part of statistics only covers topics from the first half of AP Statistics, ie no sampling distributions or hypothesis testing etc.

People that plug the strength of the IB Math program should really look into it before giving advice to others. It is a bad curriculum.

? European schools do integrated math. Too many kids lack good foundational knowledge in math when they get up to higher level math.

In any case, OP's school doesn't have AP, so your post is moot.

I actually went to high school in an European country, integrated math is not as common as you claim.

Not clear to me why you need to do a lengthy review algebra and geometry in what is supposed to be a college level math class like IB HL AA that is equivalent to university calculus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet students who have already taken Calc BC struggle like crazy in AA HL at my kid’s school. Go figure.

I call BS in this. How do you know what classes those students took, and how they are doing in their current classes? Seriously, just mind your own business, leave those students alone, and refrain from badmouthing them. What a Karen!

Who hurt you? Geez.

Nobody hurt me. It’s just tacky to gossip and speculate on other kid’s academics. If you don’t see how this is in poor taste, I can’t really help you here.