AP Precalculus vs Honors Precalculus
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Anonymous
PP again. I understand they provide districts with an exam but it is optional and appears to be scored locally. Is that right? Having a test be sent off for centralized, external grading is an important element. |
Anonymous
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DD is in Honors Algebra II, and her teacher told all of the A students that they should register for this new AP PreCalc. FWIW
But it also wasn’t listed as an option yet when she picked classes before the break, so the kids have to go see the counselor once it’s added. |
Anonymous
Districts may well want to replace honors Precalculus with AP Precalculus. However, is that because they think students benefit from having an additional AP score on their record or is it a way of making upper level math classes more heterogenous by lowering the rigor of honors courses? It would be hard to see how the AP Precalculus curriculum would prepare kids well for BC Calculus. |
Anonymous
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AP Precalculus would not get credit for any math/science major in a 4-year college.
Precalculus is high school level, a remedial math in college. It might be useful for an associates degree or to fulfill a gen ed math requirement for a community college or a low or mid tier college's non-science major. It might be useful if you believe that your dream college doesn't trust MCPS to give an honest grade in the high school class. AP Physics I (non-calculus version) is similar. I'd look for what colleges say about it before dumping more. $$ into College Board. |
Anonymous
Agreed but students may not have a choice depending on what districts do. Say a district currently offers regular and honors Precalculus. AP Precalculus comes along. Do districts now offer three categories of Precalculus courses? Maybe not, given teacher shortages. Instead, districts might consider replacing either regular or honors Precalculus with AP Precalculus. While it would make more sense to swap regular Precalculus and AP Precalculus from a content standpoint, districts may choose to swap honors Precalculus with AP Precalculus instead as a way of moving (inconspicuously) toward more heterogenous math classes. The latter outcome would leave students who want to take high school calculus in a bind -- they would only have the choice of regular or AP Precalculus, neither of which provides great preparation for BC calculus. Districts might try to pack in additional coverage at the end of the AP course to make up the difference, but hard to know if that would work, particularly if non-calculus bound students (the cohort for whom AP Precalculus was originally created) are in the AP class. A prior PP said their school is advising strong students to take AP Precalculus. That suggests that their school may ultimately gravitate toward the latter outcome. |
Anonymous
I'd like to know the answer to this too. A new course being offered for the first time in MCPS is typically piloted by a small number of schools before being added to the general course bulletin. Also, the course description is submitted to the BOE for approval. |
Anonymous
Yes. AP Precalculus does not make much sense for kids who will take calculus in high school. Their colleges may not give credit for non-college level courses and in any case, they have the chance to get real college credit the next year after they take AP Calculus. In contrast, AP Precalculus does make sense for kids taking 9th grade Algebra 1. They may receive college credit for Precalculus depending on what college they attend which could fulfill their distributional requirements if they don't intend to major in STEM. That was the whole point of why AP Precalculus was created - to give kids who don't take high school calculus some way to demonstrate their math proficiency. Those are the kids that districts should be putting into AP Precalculus, not kids who need rigorous preparation for calculus. |
Anonymous
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We are at Churchill and I don't see AP Precalculus as even an option. We have regular and Hon levels only. Maybe this is offered at only specific high schools?
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Anonymous
LOL! Exactly! |
Anonymous
AP Precalculus would be a great class for students who do not intend to major in a STEM field or a major that would require calculus. College algebra is offered at the vast majority of 4-year colleges and is generally the highest math class that humanities/social science/etc. would need to take (except maybe stats). Giving those kids a chance to get their math requirements finished in high school seems awesome to me. |
Anonymous
It is a great option for non-STEM, non-calculus kids. The concern is that districts may be recommending AP Precalculus for STEM & calculus kids. While AP Precalculus would be a good swap for regular Precalculus, it's not a good swap for Honors Calculus which presently prepares kids for AP Calculus BC. |
Anonymous
No, the kids still take standard assessments, but they don't pay for them... (and they aren't for college credit.) This program was meant to diversify the kids who are prepared to take actual AP courses and provide curricular support for schools who might need it. |
Anonymous
Good resources to have. Do the standard assessments get scored by their teacher or by an external grader like the actual APs? |
Anonymous
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I don't why anyone would want to take Precalculus as a terminal math class for a college degree. The name itself tells you why it's a bad idea! *Pre*calculus without calculus is useless trivia for the non-STEM major.
A better math class would be a non-calculus Statistics class, or computer programming or economics if that counts, or a Math for Liberal Arts class. |
Anonymous
For some kids, Precalculus is their terminal class in high school but they may go on (or at least have the option to go on) to some type of calculus in college. In addition, some community and state college systems used to have math proficiency tests that incoming freshmen would have to pass to enroll. For these kids, high school Precalculus could help them pass the proficiency test so it had some use even if they did not take further math afterwards. Now, however, community and state colleges are watering down or dropping math proficiency tests altogether because so many kids were failing the tests and they didn't want to disenroll huge numbers of kids. As incoming proficiency tests are watered down, the incentive to take high school Precalculus will go down as well for some kids. Some colleges are now shifting to quantitative reasoning proficiency tests which kids have an easier time passing even if their traditional math skills are poor. |