<p>Hey guys, I will be a senior in Precalc this year. I know it's not saying much for CC's standards, but neverthless I will continue to venture on with my love for math. I just wanted you to give me any helpful information,opinions, topics, or anything dealing with Calculus that I can take on to college with me. :D </p>
<p>I've done some research and at least to my knowledge Calc I seems pretty straightfoward. I have a fairly strong algebra/trig-based background, not so much with geometry. I don't know exactly how much of Calculus is geometry-based, but I will brush up on my topics if needed. I'm excited to learn all about Limits,Derivatives,Integrals,RoC, Applications etc...</p>
<p>I don't mean to sound cheesy or incompetent with this post, just curious. </p>
<p>I heard limits are pretty straightfoward, and so are basic derivatives. Is hard to memorize all the applications? I heard it can get really confusing around optimization/maxima-minima problems and differentiation with trig fuctions/inverses. I heard Integration also is fairly solid. So I guess what I'm trying to ask is, Is there any topic that I NEED to have down fairly well or else I wouldn't understand everything else?</p>
<p>The AP Calc AB class this year did awful. I mean, they're all really smart, and have an incredible teacher, yet out of maybe 20 kids, only 2 passed. Val got a 4 and the Sal got a 3...lol. So, idk if it was just because the class was AP or studying issues or what, that's kind of why I'm posting this. I just want to make sure I know what I'm doing. </p>
<p>I don’t know how much my opinion helps here as I’m a calculus fanatic- I nearly cried in amazement when I learned derivatives and was thrown in a fit of excited giggles when I learned about the amazing properties of e. AB Calculus is pretty fun and most concepts are easy to grasp. Just to a lot of FRQ practice and constantly review what you’ve learned. I did this and got a 5 (though I had a really great teacher). Since you’re here on CC, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Just know that, more or less, many of the same concepts are tested each year. ;)</p>
<p>Personally, Calc is kind of like… THIS MAKES EVERYTHING MAKE SENSE, WHY DIDN’T I LEARN THIS BEFORE sort of thing. I know people who were taking Physics at the same time and instead of going through all that silly work with lines and slope they’d be like, “Yeah, I just took the derivative of it,” which makes SO much more sense and is so much easier (though the Physics teacher tended to give them a sour eye). But in general, the learning curve to Calc is like, nothing, and you generally use all that knowledge from previous classes (Algebra, Geometry, Trig). I know when I was learning Trig, everything was crazy and didn’t make sense. That was generally not the case with Calc. Optimization I didn’t find too difficult… if you actually understand derivatives and not just how to solve them, they shouldn’t be very difficult at all. Generally the memorizing you have to do is very minimal. I don’t know how college Calc is, but that’s what I got out of it. Usually if people ask me for advice on picking classes in my high school, I tell them, “If you like math, take Calc. If you don’t like math, don’t take Calc. You’re welcome. =D”</p>
<p>I have no idea how the supposedly brightest kids in an Calc AB class could get a 3 and a 4, unless they really didn’t know how to take the test… In my class, we cut out a month of our class time before the test just to take and review practice tests. On the first practice test, I got a 4 (and so became a school legend =D), two people got a 3, and the rest scored below that. By the fourth and last practice test, generally half the class was getting 4s and 5s (class size was 16 I think?). So, it could be that the class didn’t know how to take the AP exam (the FRQs are especially brutal if you don’t practice them), but you can definitely have a strong foundation in Calc even if you didn’t do well on the AP Calc exam.</p>
<p>Calculus compared to previous math classes, IMO, is way more coherent. Most, if not all, topics are related and concepts build upon each other, as opposed to AlgII or Precalc (which was a review in AlgII for me) which skips around from matrices to probability. </p>
<p>And seconding olliie on calc making sense of things, especially physics. It’s some grand unifying field.</p>
<p>However, deriving/integrating gets confusing pretty quick after you move past basic polynomials. A formula sheet helps to keep track of the derivative forms of each type of function (exponential, rational, trig). Also, solving problems involving the trig functions sometimes involves manipulating them using the properties, so brush up on those.</p>