Reply to High school math sequence

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "High school math sequence"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Could sonmeone comment on how hard multi variable calculus is at Blair for a senior year class.  My kid is not a math genius but finds Honors Precalc as a 10th grader quite easy.  That seems to put her on a path for AP Calc BC junior year, right.  If she doesn’t want to look like she’s phoning it in by taking AP Stats senior year, but maybe couldn’t hold her own against magnet kids, what’s a good path for her?[/quote]

I would probably recommend AP Calc AB as a junior, AP Calc BC as a senior.  She doesn't need to take multivariable calc unless she is definitely going to be an engineer or math major.[/quote]

I actually recommend this even more IF they are going into a math major or engineer.  Many kids find the Calc courses in college much more rigorous.  Getting AB and then BC in two years really establishes a firm ground on Calculus.  Multivariable isn't a weighted course either, at least in our school.  Many kids go back to Calc 2 for college, not matter how much Calc they took in school.  Jumping or bypassing Calc 3 in college is not recommended for STEM majors.  [/quote]

Completely disagree with this. Calc AB and BC are essentially the same material, except that BC moves faster because it covers just a few more topics in the end... That is essentially it. Making a  kid (who is already bored by easy precalc class) take 2 years of the same thing pretty much ensures they will hate math and possibly move away from math/STEM in college! Parents don't consider doing this, it is not a good idea for most kids.

Taking BC after AB is a terrible design because it's a big waste of time. It would only be logical for a small fraction of kids who are semi averse to math and need to go slower and have nothing to take after AB (e.g they somehow took stats, but aren't comfortable enough to jump into multivariable or any other advanced math class, so they make them take BC because well... they have to take a math course each year of high school).

Another myth stated above: One does not need 2 years of repetitive, computational high school calculus to succeed in a college engineering program. Almost all the math needed for engineering will be learned in college. So the sharp kids opt to take a faster version of calc (BC), and the ones who need to go slower take AB. Simple as that, and duplicating it is crazy overkill.[/quote]

What percentage of MCPS students go directly into BC rather than AB?  It seems like most advanced students at DS's school do AB first, than BC.  I took BC myself as my only calculus course in high school and it was no problem, but if everyone else in DS's BC math class has had AB before, he's at a clear disadvantage.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics