<p>Personally BC is harder than Physics. It's a bit more abstract, and the sheer amount of information can be quite intense.</p>
<p>Calculus BC can be difficult if you have not had a full year of precalculus because so many of the topics build a base off of precalc stuff, especially trig. Obviously it would be much easier to adapt to if you have already taken AB. Calculus can be taken without physics as a corequisite.</p>
<p>I would also not recommend taking Physics unless you have already had precalculus. The math is easier but applying it is harder. I think it helps to take Physics alongside or after Calculus because then you can sort of use calculus methods to check yourself in physics.</p>
<p>By newcomer, do you mean you haven't taken physics or calculus before? Well that's expected, isn't it? If you mean that you haven't had trig/alg. ii/precalc then I would advise against it. But if you have and you are math geared then go for both, you'll be able to handle it.</p>
<p>I wouldn't recommend taking calc with no "prior" experience. Some people can (and have) done it successfully, but I assume it must have been quite despairing. How are you going to complete the no-calculator section if you don't even know your basic unit circle?</p>
<p>As for me, math has always been my easiest subject, so I would say physics is the more difficult of the two.</p>
<p>I hate them both. But then again, I hate math.</p>
<p>And I wish I would have taken Physics C after having taken a normal physics course. But nope, I had an entirely full schedule last year and couldn't fit another class in.</p>
<p>Physics is all about intangible things. All the problems are like "pretend you have an imaginary electric field with an equal charge distribution... pretend you are at a radius of infinity from Earth..." Since I don't have good visual-spatial skills, I can't imagine things well at all. Thus why I hate physics.</p>
<p>Physics B was much harder than Calc AB for me as well. It might have had something to do with my teacher not being able to teach, or that Calc was just a bit easier.</p>
<p>I got an A for the class last year, as a result of hours upon hours of studying. But I still only memorized formulas and ways to get the answers; I never actually understood the concepts behind anything. And that's why I got a 3 on it (though I was happy with my 4 AB subscore) as opposed to a 4 or 5, the scores that all my BC friends got.</p>
<p>Both are rigious classes, and I wouldn't take neither for a joke. I can't really say which is harder, for I haven't even took neither class. Though I'm planning on taking Ap Calculus in 12th grade.
Currently a junior and have not taken physics, I'm debating on whether I should take Ap Chemistry or Physics. Though then again, I probably should debate on for my elective should I take Human Anatomy or Physics.</p>
<p>@rachel: Lol, yeah, I could imagine the difficulties with that one.</p>
<p>@SecretAsianMan: By newcomer, yes, I mean I haven't taken pre-calc. I've got Algebra II currently, but yeah. I think pre-calc is actually the only prerequisite for AP Calc at my school. And it would be ridiculous to take both the same year. </p>
<p>Calculus - It's not doable. I realize this. But I just wanted a few pov's from you lovely people.</p>
<p>I'm taking both Calc AB and Physics B. Physics is much harder because you have to put together so many concepts for some questions. Physics B is not based in Calculus so you don't need to take a Calc class in order to take B, but you do need to be comfortable with trig in order to be able to do many problems easily.</p>
<p>Well the answer really depends on what kind of a person you are. It is my opinion that Calculus AB is muc harder than regular physics. However AP physics is tougher than calc AB. Calculus BC, however, is the mother of all hard classes, even physics C. But it depends on your school. The average calc BC AP test score at my school is a 4.7, so almost everyone recieved 5s. But many kids who got fives did not get As because the teacher is very hard. If you want to work a lot both AP Calc and AP physics are do-able, but they will be very difficult. I struggled in AB with a hard teacher and I have taken pre-calc, but I did manage to pull of an A and a 5. So it all depends on how much of a life you want to have, and if you arlready are familiar with physics, trig, and precal concepts</p>
<p>Physics is boring. I took a physics midterm today and much of it was a cakewalk because it was basically a review of stuff I learned in AP Physics. But the other bit just seemed so pointless. It’s really like a special case of the mathematics.</p>
<p>Calc before trig? LOL, you better hope that your teacher doesn’t tell you to do a problem like this:
Differentiate with respect to x
f(x)= ( (sin (5x(x+3)^4))^2 + (cos (5x(x+3)^4))^2 )^6</p>
<p>I wonder how long it would take to do that without trig…</p>
<p>Still, I didn’t really take trig and yet it’s not that hard. You only really have to know the relation identities and the pythagorean identity to get by.</p>