<p>Hello,
First semester I receieved a C in AP Calculus (AB) and the class has just been getting harder since. The way the teacher teaches the material does not trigger my mind and it takes me several hours at home to understand the material completly. I took a test last week and was sure that I did okay, however; today I received it back and got a 60. Basically I am down to a D- range and have the midterm next week. I am planning on studying all weekend and up until the midterm however this grade, if high enough, will only boost me up to a D/ D+. My grade that will be sent to colleges will be a C-/ D+. The teacher does not check/ grade hw and our class consists of almost all tests and quizes. Yes, I should have spent more time on this, but these past months have been really difficult for me and my grades are generally in the A-/B+ range with no C's on my transcript.
I am not quite sure what to do... should I personally send a letter explaining the situation to my schools or should I ask my guidance counselor (but I do not think that she will write it). Thank you!</p>
<p>I'm in the same predicament. Ihave a B in my BC Calculus class and I just took the Midyear today....I didn't even have time to finish everything. APs are very difficult and colleges do give considerations to academically-challenging courses. However I think a D will hurt you badly. If you plan on getting into top notch schools, they would not like to see that D on your midyear report. However, if you get good grades in all your other classes, then this one D is not so reflective of your performance in your first semester senior year because they would think that you have a bad Calculus teacher. It's just one class after all and it's AP but do expect that whichever college you apply to will call your school to ask why you have received a D. I don't think this grade will affect your acceptance chance so much, especially if you are going to major in liberal arts.</p>
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The way the teacher teaches the material does not trigger my mind and it takes me several hours at home to understand the material completly.
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The problem is you aren't studying enough. I'm going to say "several hours" is 3 to 5. The rule of thumb for a college class, especially math or science, is 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in class. A college class meets 3x a week, so kids in college taking calculus are putting in 9 hours each week, many putting in more than that.</p>
<p>And if your class textbook isn't cutting it for you in terms of learning then you need to find some other texts or online sites that explain it better. Just because your school passed out a certain book doesn't mean its going to be the best one for YOU to learn the material. And as for the tests, after you understand the concepts in science or math you have to practice applying them. In this sense these classes are more like tennis or spanish than subjects like history or health; you need to spend time practicing until you can readily and easily get the right answer. This is the part a lot of students miss; they read a section in the book that describes, say, trigonometric substitutions, and it makes sense. They think they know it, particularly if they review it once or twice. Problem is you can't actually APPLY the idea on a test without spending hours practicing it, any more than describing how to form the past tense of a verb lets you do it fluently in conversation. </p>
<p>Fortunately there are books out there, titled something like "Calculus Problem Solvers", that have thousands of worked examples arranged by topic. You just flip to the chapter matching what you're studying, cover up the answer, and try to solve it. Check your answer, read thru the solution if you got it wrong, and keep doing them until you can get them right. When you see a similar problem on your class test you'll solve it just as readily. Spend 9-10 hours each week doing this and I guarantee you'll be passing the tests.</p>
<p>One other thing -- a lot of calculus builds on itself. If you don't have a solid grasp of the earlier material, the later stuff can seem opaque. So you should really go back to the 1st chapter of your calculus book, find the corresponding section of the problem solver book, and start practicing. A few hours on each chapter and you'll find the material makes sense and you can solve the problems.
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I am not quite sure what to do... should I personally send a letter explaining the situation to my schools or should I ask my guidance counselor?
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Save your time. How do you "explain" it? That you should have spent more time and you promise you'll do better in the future? It's not an explanation, it's an excuse. That's not going to be very compelling to adcoms who have your letter in one hand, and in the other transcripts from kids who already DID spend enough time on a difficult class and show every indication they'll continue to do so in the future. What you <em>should</em> do is spend more time on this class and bring your grade up. You want something the adcoms will notice, bring your grade up to a B over the next 6 or 7 weeks and then have your counselor send a note to your schools advising them of your significant improvement. THAT'S something they'll notice.</p>
<p>Internet</a> Archive: Advanced Placement Calculus AB</p>
<p>I definitely second mikemac's suggestion. Spend more time working with the material. Study. Study. Study.</p>
<p>The link I have provided above has interactive lessons for each lesson in the standard AP Calculus AB course. They are really helpful to understanding the concepts.</p>
<p>Best of luck. :)</p>
<p>one last thought -- if your grade slip was due to external circumstances (illness, divorce or other family issues, etc) then that's something your counselor could make the schools you've applied to aware of. They'll take that into account; nobody is so heartless to hold people facing misfortune thru no fault of their own to the highest standards.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for that link, Sligh. Very helpful.</p>
<p>i bombed Calc last year too, i ended up with a C but it could have been a lot worse... as you probably know, in Calculus if you don't make an effort to completely learn everything from the basics, you would continue to slip further and further downhill. before you end up failing the class, you have to stop yourself and make a committment to get better at it.</p>
<p>like literally, i would just be sitting in class feeling like an idiot not understanding anything. i would always tell myself that i would go home and review what i learned, but i rarely ever made the time for myself. and even when i did, i just wasn't effective at studying and it didn't really help. my teacher was no help either. he basically catered only to the kids that understood quickly and didn't slow down to explain things for anyone else. </p>
<p>i kind of developed a learned helplessness, in psychology that's when continued failure causes one to lose confidence and just give up. every test/quiz i was taking was coming back as Ds and Es, maybe a C if i was lucky. even when i "studied" my ass off (at the time, i thought staring at the textbook for a couple hours and doing a couple problems was "studying my ass off"), i would still get Ds and Es. it was tough, because i lost a lot of confidence and became unsure of my own intelligence. everyone else seemed to be picking it up faster than me, and i felt really dumb.</p>
<p>but instead of just succumbing to it, midway through the year i decided to pull myself together and made it my goal to at least do well on the AP test. like someone said, if you want to get better at Calculus, it's really not hard to find resources. the average person will struggle with Calculus when they first learn it, so there really are TONS of resources out there. the AP test review books are really good, because they summarize the main points in an easy-to-understand manner as opposed to the confusing jargon and complicated symbols from the textbook. you should try the Princeton Review and Kaplan books, they were really helpful. and there are tons and tons of little online tutorials and whatnot. now, it definitely wasn't easy for me to sit down and study, especially with me basically being a slacker. for about 2-3 weeks i would just go to the library for like 2-3 hours a day, sometimes up to 6+ hours a day on weekends. i would watch tutorials, read the books, and do problems upon problems.</p>
<p>in the end, i really improved my performance towards the end of the year. unfortunately, it was too late to improve my grade at that point, and my final grades still averaged out to a C. it did feel like all hope was lost, but fortunately when my AP scores came in i had gotten a 4. now, i'm a senior in Calc BC, and i just finished first semester with an A. so i think i have effectively made up for it.</p>
<p>my advice to you, is yes, write a letter explaining the problems you've had, the mistakes you made in the way you approached the class, and what you will do to change that in the future. i would at least have your guidance counselor look over it and sign off on it.</p>