Accelerated Calculus?

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>Hello! Obviously, this is my first post, so I apologize if it is incorrectly located.</p>

<p>That being said, I am currently extremely confused regarding whether or not to take this course. I took Calculus BC in high school and earned an A both semesters, however I do not know my AP result at this moment. Also, due to where I live, we were able to take the Purdue MA165 and 166 tests during our class, I passed 165 and did decently on 166. The reason for not doing so well on the 166 test was that it contained problems over vectors and the like, something we didn't even touch in our high school class. </p>

<p>However, I will be attending Indiana University this fall and took their placement test during orientation. I placed into M213, which is the accelerated calculus course. It states that it is designed for students with one year of calculus in secondary school, so I am a little nervous about taking it as I did not do so well on the MA166 test. </p>

<p>My other option is to drop the class and take M211, which is the first semester of Calculus offered. My predicament comes from whether 213 would be too hard and if 211 would be a review of what I did this year. I was hoping to maintain a 4.0 throughout freshman year at least, and no less than 3.8 the rest of my time in college, so that factors into my decision as well. 213 already has a strike against it for being at the same time as the two languages I wanted to take, Finnish or Norwegian! </p>

<p>Any thoughts about the matter would be greatly appreciated! If anybody took an accelerated calculus course, I would love to hear about it! </p>

<p>Thanks for your time! Hopefully I'll see some of you around this forum a bit more :P.</p>

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<p>About your GPA. Don’t stress it that much. Keep it up. But not getting a 4.0 isn’t the end of the world. </p>

<p>I am guessing those courses are honors Calc 2 and honors Calc 3. BC is just up to 2. </p>

<p>I took honors calc 3 and 4the my freshman year. If you can skip any math, do it.</p>

<p>Also calc 2 is a “weed out class” at umich so the grades are pretty low. Skip that if you can.</p>

<p>Plus the curves are sometimes higher in honors classes.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your response!</p>

<p>I realize that about GPA, I have a somewhat bad habit of setting expectations of perfection for myself, thus why I was hoping to maintain a 4.0.</p>

<p>I did a bit of reading about the course, it basically reviews Calc 1 in five weeks, then proceeds to move onto Calc 2 for the remainder. I over viewed what both cover during a semester, and I feel pretty confident about the topics. Would you suggest I then move onto Calc 3 even if it wasn’t recommended by my advisor? </p>

<p>I would like to skip as many as possible, but I also don’t want to be overzealous and jump into something I’m not prepared for.</p>

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<p>Calc 3 is easier than Calc 2. I think you’ll be ok if you are confident with Calc 2</p>

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<p>Ah! Thanks for your help, it definitely helped clear some things up and made me feel more at ease!</p>

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<p>Calc III is a cakewalk compared to calc II. Calc I and II gave you the tools needed to do 3-dimensional models, which is all calc III is. If you did well in calc II and feel confident about what you learned, then you should do fine in the accelerated course.<br>
Good luck.</p>

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<p>Take 213. The course description says that it’s a one-semester review of Calc 1+2 for students who have already seen the material before. I think you would be bored in 211 and the department seems to think that you are not quite ready for Calc 3.</p>

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<p>[University</a> Division: Indiana University Bloomington](<a href=“http://ud.iub.edu/fs_ap.php]University”>http://ud.iub.edu/fs_ap.php) is the supposed location of IU’s AP credit chart according to a search for “AP credit”, but it does not exist. However, the cached version at <a href=“http://search5.iu.edu/search?q=cache:kqynF1TgaRsJ:ud.iub.edu/fs_ap.php+ap+credit&client=iub&proxystylesheet=iub&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&site=iub&access=p&oe=windows-1252[/url]”>http://search5.iu.edu/search?q=cache:kqynF1TgaRsJ:ud.iub.edu/fs_ap.php+ap+credit&client=iub&proxystylesheet=iub&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&site=iub&access=p&oe=windows-1252&lt;/a&gt; indicates that AP Calculus BC with a score of 4 or 5 counts for Math 211 and 212.</p>

<p>Was the placement test the one described here: [Department</a> of Mathematics: Indiana University Bloomington](<a href=“http://www.math.indiana.edu/undergraduate/calcexam.phtml]Department”>http://www.math.indiana.edu/undergraduate/calcexam.phtml) .</p>

<p>If you got a 5 on the AP Calculus BC and are confident in your knowledge of the course content of 211 and 212, then you may want to consider moving on to more advanced math courses. Otherwise, 213 is probably the best choice for you.</p>

<p>As far as GPA goes, it is often the case that students’ GPAs get better in their later years, because by then they are taking mostly courses in their major (i.e. the subject that they like best and are best at), rather than general education requirements and prerequisite requirements that they may not be as good at or interested in.</p>