<p>hello, I need serious help with a big decision,
This is my standing Im going to be a senior next year, I'm currently taking Pre-calculus in the summer to be able to enroll in AP Calculus AB for senior year. I'm struggling really hard in this class as I have really weak algebra skills. I'm taking AP gov, AP English Lit, chem Honors, and Ap Spanish lit besides the AP calculus next year. do you guys think its worth investing so much of my time in trying to pass AP Calculus?
Im not very good at math so its a big challenge for me. what are the benefits of taking Ap calculus class and passing the AP? Im planning to attend one of the UC schools.</p>
<p>I want to major in philosophy or business and do pre-law.</p>
<p>Considering many/most (top) colleges really recommend taking 4 years of math up to Calculus, it’s not a bad idea to take it to really gain a threshold into college level math.</p>
<p>If you’re struggling with pre-calculus and basic algebra stuff (i.e. quadratics), I can only imagine calculus is going to be hell. But I’d suggest keep trying, and go back and master your basics all summer. If you feel confident in your pre-calc skills, go ahead and shoot for AP Calc. At worst, drop out into pre-calc which should be a breeze at that point.</p>
<p>Bottom line: keep working and try for Ap Calc.</p>
<p>Respectfully, I disagree with HONORLIONS’ advice above.</p>
<p>Many UCs are pretty selective–some more than others, of course–but I don’t think tanking in AB Calculus will help the OP’s chances of admission at any of them.</p>
<p>I am taking the OP at his word when he says he is weak in math, that he (or she–but I’m not going to keep typing or she, and I hope nobody will be bothered by that) has a poor foundation in algebra, and that he struggles with material on the level of quadratics. This will be a huge problem for him if he does decide to major in business, because he’ll almost surely have to take a business-oriented calculus class, and possibly calculus-based economics as well. But the way to address this problem is by retaking the subjects he hasn’t yet mastered. It will probably be less administrative hassle to do this in college, by going back and taking college algebra, than by repeating something he has already passed while he is in high school.</p>
<p>And, really, pushing on into calculus when you’re struggling in Precal and weak in algebra is asking for a whole world of both misery and trouble. Frankly, I think honors Chem sounds hard unless you’re pretty good at Algebra II, especially logs.</p>
<p>AP Calculus AB will be a gentler introduction to calculus than a university calculus course. AP Calculus AB covers about a semester’s worth of university calculus over a year, whereas if you wait until you are a freshman in university, you will have to cover that material at twice the speed.</p>
<p>And if you do not do that well in the course or AP test, you could just take first semester university calculus over, discarding the AP credit (if any), but with some knowledge from having taken AP Calculus AB in high school.</p>
<p>However, this does assume a reasonable knowledge of precalculus. You may want to try the on-line placement exam found here:
[Choosing</a> the First Math Course at UC Berkeley - UC Berkeley Department of Mathematics](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses_1stcourse.html]Choosing”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses_1stcourse.html)
to see how well you know the precalculus concepts needed before taking calculus.</p>
<p>Note that business majors do have to take calculus (although it can be an easier “calculus for business majors”). Philosophy majors have to take a course in logic, which uses similar thought processes as math.</p>
<p>Can you take AP Stat instead? It’s still AP math and isn’t based in as much advanced algebra.</p>
<p>Am I the only one who felt the algebra was dumbed down from pre-calc to calculus? I mean, finding roots became a lot easier and less tricky, there was less manipulation of logs, no conics (which I missed) or matrices. Vectors seemed watered down too, and you worked, basically, only with position/velocity/acceleration and related rates. Parametric equations were simplified because you could work with components (no need to eliminate the parameter, which is often the hardest part). You rarely used advanced trig formulas.</p>
<p>Going off my own personal experience here: I’m a liberal arts/languages kind of student. My grades show it (I always got B’s in math), my test scores show it, I’m just not good at math. Instead, I focused on doing well in my liberal arts/languages and doing well enough in math (I only took three years!), and I still got accepted to the only UC on my list. </p>
<p>I’m also not required to take math next year, and if I choose to take math, my placement test will let me take statistics in place of calc.</p>
Not really. We spent about 4 weeks reviewing precalculus in the beginning. We spend about 10 weeks reviewing everything at the end.
So, AP Calculus pace is pretty much the same as University Calculus.</p>
<p>Same with Calculus BC. Spent 9 weeks reviewing AB stuff in the beginning, and 9 weeks reviewing alltogether at the end.</p>