Calc with Applications or AP Calc AB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors Pre Calc is harder than Calc! -said many teens and manynmath teachers and many admission officers/admin at colleges

What is "formal teaching"? Formal teaching is a lecture, which is like a video (but there are many videos better than most lecturers).


Not our experience. Get a tutor.

Goal of learning at school should be not to have to get a tutor. If you are needing tutors, either teaching is no good or student is not in correct level. But, Larla us in AP BC Calc so I'm going to sign up for it too. No, you shouldn't because you're not at same level as Larla. There should be NO need for tutors.

It would be nice not to have to have tutors but the current curriculum and teaching methods don't work for all students. No textbooks and no formal teaching for hard classes makes tutors a necessity. Our teacher has the kids learn with a homework packet and videos. Could you learn caclus that way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors Pre Calc is harder than Calc! -said many teens and manynmath teachers and many admission officers/admin at colleges

Not our experience. Get a tutor.

Goal of learning at school should be not to have to get a tutor. If you are needing tutors, either teaching is no good or student is not in correct level. But, Larla us in AP BC Calc so I'm going to sign up for it too. No, you shouldn't because you're not at same level as Larla. There should be NO need for tutors.

Goal of learning at school is to keep kids off drugs and crime.

If you want to learn more than the school provides, you need a tutor or external support.

If your kid is doing BC without tutoring or other external support, your kid could probably be in MV or whatever advanced class instead if she got more math support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors Pre Calc is harder than Calc! -said many teens and manynmath teachers and many admission officers/admin at colleges

Not our experience. Get a tutor.

Goal of learning at school should be not to have to get a tutor. If you are needing tutors, either teaching is no good or student is not in correct level. But, Larla us in AP BC Calc so I'm going to sign up for it too. No, you shouldn't because you're not at same level as Larla. There should be NO need for tutors.

It would be nice not to have to have tutors but the current curriculum and teaching methods don't work for all students. No textbooks and no formal teaching for hard classes makes tutors a necessity. Our teacher has the kids learn with a homework packet and videos. Could you learn caclus that way?

What is "formal teaching"? Formal teaching is a lecture, which is like a video (but there are many videos better than most lecturers).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid is taking Hon Pre-Calc this year at Blair, and is managing but it has been a struggle!

Be more specific. Are they solving the problems eventually but it takes a lot of time?

Or getting B-/C+?

If they can solve 90% of the problems of Honors Precalc, then Calc AB is fine.

"Managing with a struggle" is good, in moderation. Something has to be hard, or else you are lazy.

I am guessing you've never heard of dyscalculia.

I've heard of dyscalculia, and also dyslexia, which you should seek help with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid went from non-honors pre calculus to AP Calculus AB. I’ve always heard that Honors Pre Calculus is tougher. Are they struggling to get an A or struggling to get a C?

OP here - Kid is not looking for super easy but also doesn't want to spend hours on math every day and has a demanding schedule otherwise next year. He has been getting in the B range, with consistent hard work. Sounds like AB should be all right.

I agree. If AB is easy and he wants to stretch, he can do BC extension topics at home and switch to take the BC exam or a college placement exam for credit.

(70% gets you a 5 on the AP exam, but I wouldn't recommend continuing to calc 3 based on at that.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors Pre Calc is harder than Calc! -said many teens and manynmath teachers and many admission officers/admin at colleges

IDK if that's really true, but it seems to be the case for my DC. DC said Calc with Apps is super easy. DC should've taken AP AB Calc but 1. it was first period and DC struggles waking up and has a hard time with first period classes and 2. the AP AB calc teacher is difficult to understand (don't flame me.. I'm also an immigrant and work with lots of other immigrants, but teens may have a harder time understanding).

1. No teen should be signed up for math first period with the current HS start time. ALL math teachers probably agree.

2. Shortage of STEAM and foreign language teachers, unfortunately. your math teacher could probably be identified based on description and the class you listed

MCPS has 27 HS all with several Calc teachers. I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid went from non-honors pre calculus to AP Calculus AB. I’ve always heard that Honors Pre Calculus is tougher. Are they struggling to get an A or struggling to get a C?

OP here - Kid is not looking for super easy but also doesn't want to spend hours on math every day and has a demanding schedule otherwise next year. He has been getting in the B range, with consistent hard work. Sounds like AB should be all right.

I agree. If AB is easy and he wants to stretch, he can do BC extension topics at home and switch to take the BC exam or a college placement exam for credit.

(70% gets you a 5 on the AP exam, but I wouldn't recommend continuing to calc 3 based on at that.)

Doesn't BC add an addtional full semester of college calc? Sounds like more than "extension topics."

[Anonymous]

My DS tried AP Calc AB, got scared because it was challenging, and dropped to Calc with Apps. It's stupidly easy and he barely does work for it. I really regret his dropping down.