After AOPS intro books

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm OP.

We have been doing Intermediate Algebra book, and now at Chap. 14. We are skipping all challenge questions and Chap. 5, and will do up to Chap. 16. I originally thought this book is too difficult, but actually it works for us.

I can understand skipping ellipses and hyperbolas, but why skip 5.1-5.3?

Because the book preface says chap. 5 is less important, I thought. We may revisit it later.
By the way, we did Alcumus intro to Algebra section before this book, and for some questions we needed to look at the intermediate book. By doing so, we thought that the intermediate book is doable.

Yes many of the harder intro to algebra Alcumus problems are also included as easier intermediary algebra questions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm OP.

We have been doing Intermediate Algebra book, and now at Chap. 14. We are skipping all challenge questions and Chap. 5, and will do up to Chap. 16. I originally thought this book is too difficult, but actually it works for us.

I can understand skipping ellipses and hyperbolas, but why skip 5.1-5.3?

Because the book preface says chap. 5 is less important, I thought. We may revisit it later.
By the way, we did Alcumus intro to Algebra section before this book, and for some questions we needed to look at the intermediate book. By doing so, we thought that the intermediate book is doable.

The book says Chapter 5 is the least important. Conic Sections are cute but irrelevant.
5.3 (Vertex of parabola) is called out as useful, but that’s a repeat from Intro Algebra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm OP.

We have been doing Intermediate Algebra book, and now at Chap. 14. We are skipping all challenge questions and Chap. 5, and will do up to Chap. 16. I originally thought this book is too difficult, but actually it works for us.

I can understand skipping ellipses and hyperbolas, but why skip 5.1-5.3?

Because the book preface says chap. 5 is less important, I thought. We may revisit it later.
By the way, we did Alcumus intro to Algebra section before this book, and for some questions we needed to look at the intermediate book. By doing so, we thought that the intermediate book is doable.

The book says Chapter 5 is the least important. Conic Sections are cute but irrelevant.
5.3 (Vertex of parabola) is called out as useful, but that’s a repeat from Intro Algebra.

Circles are commonly tested on the AMC and even the SAT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm OP.

We have been doing Intermediate Algebra book, and now at Chap. 14. We are skipping all challenge questions and Chap. 5, and will do up to Chap. 16. I originally thought this book is too difficult, but actually it works for us.

I can understand skipping ellipses and hyperbolas, but why skip 5.1-5.3?

Because the book preface says chap. 5 is less important, I thought. We may revisit it later.
By the way, we did Alcumus intro to Algebra section before this book, and for some questions we needed to look at the intermediate book. By doing so, we thought that the intermediate book is doable.

The book says Chapter 5 is the least important. Conic Sections are cute but irrelevant.
5.3 (Vertex of parabola) is called out as useful, but that’s a repeat from Intro Algebra.

Circles are commonly tested on the AMC and even the SAT

Analytic Geometry of Circles is covered in the Geometry book.

AMC isn't relevant to this discussion which is about what parts of the book are skippable. Obviously all of it is relevant if you want to do the contests that the books were written as training material for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm OP.

We have been doing Intermediate Algebra book, and now at Chap. 14. We are skipping all challenge questions and Chap. 5, and will do up to Chap. 16. I originally thought this book is too difficult, but actually it works for us.

I can understand skipping ellipses and hyperbolas, but why skip 5.1-5.3?

Because the book preface says chap. 5 is less important, I thought. We may revisit it later.
By the way, we did Alcumus intro to Algebra section before this book, and for some questions we needed to look at the intermediate book. By doing so, we thought that the intermediate book is doable.

The book says Chapter 5 is the least important. Conic Sections are cute but irrelevant.
5.3 (Vertex of parabola) is called out as useful, but that’s a repeat from Intro Algebra.

Circles are commonly tested on the AMC and even the SAT

Analytic Geometry of Circles is covered in the Geometry book.

AMC isn't relevant to this discussion which is about what parts of the book are skippable. Obviously all of it is relevant if you want to do the contests that the books were written as training material for.

What is the metric for including/excluding topics? Conic sections are a standard part of the normal, non-competition math curriculum

[Anonymous]

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. We have been doing AOPS's Contest Math for Middle School (small paperback) after the intro series. It was a good book to practice, but DC is sick of it (we repeated the missed questions up to 4 times). Then, I randomly purchased from Amazon Learn or Review Trigonometry Essential Skills, but it is too easy.

DC is not math genius, and we are not that interested in pushing for the contest math direction. DC recently took AMC8 at school though.

I looked at the AOPS's Intermediate Algebra book, and it seems too difficult/unnecessary. Alcumus is recommended, and we will do, but I am looking for a next book to work on.

Is AOPS's precalculus book a bad idea (wondering this book may be easier than Intermediate Algebra?), or do you recommend just repeat Intro to Algebra book for a second round?

While starting to learn the beginning of AoPS Precalc would not be a bad idea, I would personally not recommend it until they have a very good grasp of algebra. Despite its smaller size, the precalc book has more difficult material than Intermediate algebra (for the most part). The book is very different from a typical K12 precalculus book. It essentially teaches three topics in great depth, connecting them all together: 1) Trigonometry in the first third of the book, 2) Complex Numbers in the second part of the book, and 3) Fundamentals of Linear algebra (vectors, matrices in both 2D and 3D) as well as a final chapter on solving tough geometry problems using vectors and other tools learned in the book. Some of the problems (not all) can be very difficult, and a few have appeared in past high school Olympiads such as the USAMO, etc.

I think the most important principle is that your DC should enjoy math (CMMS is a lovely little book, but I don't think it was a great idea to have made them repeat problems they missed 4 times, as that is not a recipe for enjoyment...) One way to do that is to solve lots of interesting problems at an untimed and relaxed pace. A few ways that could be done is by perusing the AoPS site and cherry picking problems that look interesting to them (i.e from the past AMC 8 or even AMC 10 questions) or perhaps via playing Alcumus (which itself contains a very large collection of problems, many from past contests).

Earlier in this thread I have recommended for you Anna Burago's Mathematical Circle Diaries. If your DC finished the Intro series, Year 2 (the second book in the two book series) would be more appropriate. It contains many interesting problems organized by various topics, that are excellently curated, similar to AoPS. It introduces students to some difficult ideas that most don't see until a discrete math course in college (i.e Pigeonhole Principle, Invariants, Parity, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, etc) via approachable problems aimed at advanced middle schoolers. Some of these topics are really very lovely, but sadly AoPS did not include them in their books (other than perhaps in their Intermediate Counting and Probability book, which is an amazing but challenging book, on par with their Precalculus or Calculus book).

hello, we interacted previously about DC but i couldn't find that thread. it's was about AOPS algebra 2, so it's relevant. DC is taking that class now and yesterday told me this is the best thing ever and they nowhere learned so much. when i wrote to you here several months ago i wasn't sure whether DC was ready and if they will be able to take advantage of the advanced content. DC was well behind in math (100% on all tests obviously but superficial knowledge) with little capacity to work on the same problem for extended amount of time. this class lit up the math fire in DC.

we had no idea how good it was, either. thank you.

[Anonymous]

I'm OP. The original post is over 1.5 year ago. Thanks again for the helpful comments. Since then, DC has done intermediate algebra book, precalculus book (trig only), Vol. 1 book, AMC10, and Mathcount, and now we are repeating intro to geometry book, by skipping all explanatory problems ad challenge Qs. Hopefully we can do the first round of calculus book next year so that we have time to repeat it.

[Anonymous]

Why are you jumping around so much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. We have been doing AOPS's Contest Math for Middle School (small paperback) after the intro series. It was a good book to practice, but DC is sick of it (we repeated the missed questions up to 4 times). Then, I randomly purchased from Amazon Learn or Review Trigonometry Essential Skills, but it is too easy.

DC is not math genius, and we are not that interested in pushing for the contest math direction. DC recently took AMC8 at school though.

I looked at the AOPS's Intermediate Algebra book, and it seems too difficult/unnecessary. Alcumus is recommended, and we will do, but I am looking for a next book to work on.

Is AOPS's precalculus book a bad idea (wondering this book may be easier than Intermediate Algebra?), or do you recommend just repeat Intro to Algebra book for a second round?

While starting to learn the beginning of AoPS Precalc would not be a bad idea, I would personally not recommend it until they have a very good grasp of algebra. Despite its smaller size, the precalc book has more difficult material than Intermediate algebra (for the most part). The book is very different from a typical K12 precalculus book. It essentially teaches three topics in great depth, connecting them all together: 1) Trigonometry in the first third of the book, 2) Complex Numbers in the second part of the book, and 3) Fundamentals of Linear algebra (vectors, matrices in both 2D and 3D) as well as a final chapter on solving tough geometry problems using vectors and other tools learned in the book. Some of the problems (not all) can be very difficult, and a few have appeared in past high school Olympiads such as the USAMO, etc.

I think the most important principle is that your DC should enjoy math (CMMS is a lovely little book, but I don't think it was a great idea to have made them repeat problems they missed 4 times, as that is not a recipe for enjoyment...) One way to do that is to solve lots of interesting problems at an untimed and relaxed pace. A few ways that could be done is by perusing the AoPS site and cherry picking problems that look interesting to them (i.e from the past AMC 8 or even AMC 10 questions) or perhaps via playing Alcumus (which itself contains a very large collection of problems, many from past contests).

Earlier in this thread I have recommended for you Anna Burago's Mathematical Circle Diaries. If your DC finished the Intro series, Year 2 (the second book in the two book series) would be more appropriate. It contains many interesting problems organized by various topics, that are excellently curated, similar to AoPS. It introduces students to some difficult ideas that most don't see until a discrete math course in college (i.e Pigeonhole Principle, Invariants, Parity, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, etc) via approachable problems aimed at advanced middle schoolers. Some of these topics are really very lovely, but sadly AoPS did not include them in their books (other than perhaps in their Intermediate Counting and Probability book, which is an amazing but challenging book, on par with their Precalculus or Calculus book).

hello, we interacted previously about DC but i couldn't find that thread. it's was about AOPS algebra 2, so it's relevant. DC is taking that class now and yesterday told me this is the best thing ever and they nowhere learned so much. when i wrote to you here several months ago i wasn't sure whether DC was ready and if they will be able to take advantage of the advanced content. DC was well behind in math (100% on all tests obviously but superficial knowledge) with little capacity to work on the same problem for extended amount of time. this class lit up the math fire in DC.

we had no idea how good it was, either. thank you.

You mean the intermediate algebra class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm OP. The original post is over 1.5 year ago. Thanks again for the helpful comments. Since then, DC has done intermediate algebra book, precalculus book (trig only), Vol. 1 book, AMC10, and Mathcount, and now we are repeating intro to geometry book, by skipping all explanatory problems ad challenge Qs. Hopefully we can do the first round of calculus book next year so that we have time to repeat it.

why skip the geometry challenge Qs?

[pettifogger]

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. We have been doing AOPS's Contest Math for Middle School (small paperback) after the intro series. It was a good book to practice, but DC is sick of it (we repeated the missed questions up to 4 times). Then, I randomly purchased from Amazon Learn or Review Trigonometry Essential Skills, but it is too easy.

DC is not math genius, and we are not that interested in pushing for the contest math direction. DC recently took AMC8 at school though.

I looked at the AOPS's Intermediate Algebra book, and it seems too difficult/unnecessary. Alcumus is recommended, and we will do, but I am looking for a next book to work on.

Is AOPS's precalculus book a bad idea (wondering this book may be easier than Intermediate Algebra?), or do you recommend just repeat Intro to Algebra book for a second round?

While starting to learn the beginning of AoPS Precalc would not be a bad idea, I would personally not recommend it until they have a very good grasp of algebra. Despite its smaller size, the precalc book has more difficult material than Intermediate algebra (for the most part). The book is very different from a typical K12 precalculus book. It essentially teaches three topics in great depth, connecting them all together: 1) Trigonometry in the first third of the book, 2) Complex Numbers in the second part of the book, and 3) Fundamentals of Linear algebra (vectors, matrices in both 2D and 3D) as well as a final chapter on solving tough geometry problems using vectors and other tools learned in the book. Some of the problems (not all) can be very difficult, and a few have appeared in past high school Olympiads such as the USAMO, etc.

I think the most important principle is that your DC should enjoy math (CMMS is a lovely little book, but I don't think it was a great idea to have made them repeat problems they missed 4 times, as that is not a recipe for enjoyment...) One way to do that is to solve lots of interesting problems at an untimed and relaxed pace. A few ways that could be done is by perusing the AoPS site and cherry picking problems that look interesting to them (i.e from the past AMC 8 or even AMC 10 questions) or perhaps via playing Alcumus (which itself contains a very large collection of problems, many from past contests).

Earlier in this thread I have recommended for you Anna Burago's Mathematical Circle Diaries. If your DC finished the Intro series, Year 2 (the second book in the two book series) would be more appropriate. It contains many interesting problems organized by various topics, that are excellently curated, similar to AoPS. It introduces students to some difficult ideas that most don't see until a discrete math course in college (i.e Pigeonhole Principle, Invariants, Parity, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, etc) via approachable problems aimed at advanced middle schoolers. Some of these topics are really very lovely, but sadly AoPS did not include them in their books (other than perhaps in their Intermediate Counting and Probability book, which is an amazing but challenging book, on par with their Precalculus or Calculus book).

hello, we interacted previously about DC but i couldn't find that thread. it's was about AOPS algebra 2, so it's relevant. DC is taking that class now and yesterday told me this is the best thing ever and they nowhere learned so much. when i wrote to you here several months ago i wasn't sure whether DC was ready and if they will be able to take advantage of the advanced content. DC was well behind in math (100% on all tests obviously but superficial knowledge) with little capacity to work on the same problem for extended amount of time. this class lit up the math fire in DC.

we had no idea how good it was, either. thank you.

No problem, glad to hear they are enjoying math and being challenged!

[Anonymous]

Silly question here: doesn’t AOPS lock all the questions once you finish the online class? Do you go over the content again by reading the books?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Silly question here: doesn’t AOPS lock all the questions once you finish the online class? Do you go over the content again by reading the books?

If you buy the online book, it never locks. Why would it?

The paper books never lock, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. We have been doing AOPS's Contest Math for Middle School (small paperback) after the intro series. It was a good book to practice, but DC is sick of it (we repeated the missed questions up to 4 times). Then, I randomly purchased from Amazon Learn or Review Trigonometry Essential Skills, but it is too easy.

DC is not math genius, and we are not that interested in pushing for the contest math direction. DC recently took AMC8 at school though.

I looked at the AOPS's Intermediate Algebra book, and it seems too difficult/unnecessary. Alcumus is recommended, and we will do, but I am looking for a next book to work on.

Is AOPS's precalculus book a bad idea (wondering this book may be easier than Intermediate Algebra?), or do you recommend just repeat Intro to Algebra book for a second round?

While starting to learn the beginning of AoPS Precalc would not be a bad idea, I would personally not recommend it until they have a very good grasp of algebra. Despite its smaller size, the precalc book has more difficult material than Intermediate algebra (for the most part). The book is very different from a typical K12 precalculus book. It essentially teaches three topics in great depth, connecting them all together: 1) Trigonometry in the first third of the book, 2) Complex Numbers in the second part of the book, and 3) Fundamentals of Linear algebra (vectors, matrices in both 2D and 3D) as well as a final chapter on solving tough geometry problems using vectors and other tools learned in the book. Some of the problems (not all) can be very difficult, and a few have appeared in past high school Olympiads such as the USAMO, etc.

I think the most important principle is that your DC should enjoy math (CMMS is a lovely little book, but I don't think it was a great idea to have made them repeat problems they missed 4 times, as that is not a recipe for enjoyment...) One way to do that is to solve lots of interesting problems at an untimed and relaxed pace. A few ways that could be done is by perusing the AoPS site and cherry picking problems that look interesting to them (i.e from the past AMC 8 or even AMC 10 questions) or perhaps via playing Alcumus (which itself contains a very large collection of problems, many from past contests).

Earlier in this thread I have recommended for you Anna Burago's Mathematical Circle Diaries. If your DC finished the Intro series, Year 2 (the second book in the two book series) would be more appropriate. It contains many interesting problems organized by various topics, that are excellently curated, similar to AoPS. It introduces students to some difficult ideas that most don't see until a discrete math course in college (i.e Pigeonhole Principle, Invariants, Parity, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, etc) via approachable problems aimed at advanced middle schoolers. Some of these topics are really very lovely, but sadly AoPS did not include them in their books (other than perhaps in their Intermediate Counting and Probability book, which is an amazing but challenging book, on par with their Precalculus or Calculus book).

hello, we interacted previously about DC but i couldn't find that thread. it's was about AOPS algebra 2, so it's relevant. DC is taking that class now and yesterday told me this is the best thing ever and they nowhere learned so much. when i wrote to you here several months ago i wasn't sure whether DC was ready and if they will be able to take advantage of the advanced content. DC was well behind in math (100% on all tests obviously but superficial knowledge) with little capacity to work on the same problem for extended amount of time. this class lit up the math fire in DC.

we had no idea how good it was, either. thank you.

You mean the intermediate algebra class?

yes
it covers so much and yet it also has quite a bit of depth. DC is a new person now