<p>Hi guys...</p>
<p>At the moment my counselor said she would move me from algebra II into pre-calc as I have an A+ at the moment, but I wanted to know if i really need pre-calc to take calc. keep in mind ill be taking it in 8th grade, but pick up on math very quickly.</p>
<p>Yeah. You need pre-calc. At least for the parts of Calc that involve trig. For Calc AB, the trig isn’t that hard, but if you don’t even know what the 6 basic trig functions ARE, let alone look like or any identities, it may be extremely difficult to pick up while factoring in the calc aspect. Also, you really don’t have enough exposure to the algebra needed for some Calc proofs if you are only beginning Alg II. Skipping to pre-calc puts you ahead of most anyway. Also, calc isn’t difficult, its the algebra behind it. The more algebra you work with, the easy calc will be.</p>
<p>Keep in mind ill still have algebra II knowledge by self-teaching.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m on pace to take Pre-Calc as a senior. ■■■ and NY regents exams requirements 
Algebra 1
Geometry
Algebra 2/Trig
Pre-Calc or Calc</p>
<p>Still, the main thing that you learn in Pre-calc that you don’t learn in algebra classes is Trig. Unless you want to self-teach that too, I would suggest to take Pre-calc. In Calc BC especially, you will want to know a lot of trig, because that is where you will be using most of the trig. If you self-teach trig though, I don’t really know which path would be better.</p>
<p>How long do you think it would take to self teach trig considering it would take <1month to learn the entire algebra II book?</p>
<p>Holy fuuuuuudge, 8th grade??? I’m in Calc AB right now in 11th grade, and in our school that’s actually the 2nd highest math class someone could be in at our grade level, let alone school level. 8th grade for Calc is ridiculous!!!</p>
<p>lol ^ same at my school… but Did you really need pre-calc?</p>
<p>To anyone whom answers… would you have survived without pre-calc?</p>
<p>You are learning a whole Alg 2 book in a month? Are you doing practice problems of just reading it? I have a friend who self-taught himself Calc AB, BC, Vector, some multivariable, and some differential equation, but he feels that it is useless to know the stuff and not practice it (which he did). He is in my Calc BC class and likes actually doing the content rather than reading. Make sure that if you self-study, you do practice problems. I don’t see someone doing a whole 13 chapter or so book in a month. That’s like a chapter a day. </p>
<p>There are like 3-4 chapters of trig you need to know (at least the way my school breaks it up); however, practicing it is more important. Things like verfying equations, parametric equations, and polar coordinates require you to practice because the concepts are not that hard to grasp, but are easy to mess up if you don’t do practice problems. I would say you could probably do trig in like 1.5-2 months if you REALLY pushed it. That is going off the same timescale that Alg 2 should take like 3-4 months if you REALLY pushed it.</p>
<p>MegaFund what did you get on your regents so far? My math ones have gone up each year xD 87 Alg 90 Geo 92 Trig</p>
<p>Do you think I could learn it as I go in Calc? or do you think I could learn whatever necessary for the trig being worked on in correspondence in calc? Lets also say that i have two or so hours a day of dedicated math work.</p>
<p>Honestly you seem a little too ahead, and you should do pre calc. You’re going to get to high school and not have any math classes left!</p>
<p>^…
My goal is to start take college courses junior year for math and science.</p>
<p>It depends on the structure of the Calc class. When I took Calc AB, we learned to do things like integrate trig functions at the same time we did normal integration. If you don’t do trig stuff with the normal algebra stuff, then you would be fine. I am not you though, so I don’t know if you are able to work through it fast enough to cover the content. Though look at it this way: if you take Calc AB when you are in 8th, then you take Calc BC in 9th, you will have to take Multivariable, Linear Algebra, and Vector calculus at colleges. That may hinder your ability to take classes in high school because of travel (it does in my school anyway if you choose to take college classes), reducing your overall classes taken in high school.</p>
<p>Your school system must be crazyyyyyyyyyyy. If we took everything up to Calc BC or something in middle school, all the missing math classes would have to be filled up with more Science or whatever. Juniors or below in my school can’t leave early.</p>
<p>The high school im planning on going to is DIRECTLY across the street from cal-state fullerton. so ill be fine from that aspect. I would expect that Calc AB is pretty uniform in teaching forms :P</p>
<p>Umm…I’m a senior and wasn’t allowed to take Pre-Cal.</p>
<p>Why don’t you take a placement test?</p>
<p>IMHO, you should go for precalc, because there’s a reason it exists. But if you’re ridiculously mathy and have had experience outside the classroom (competitions perhaps?) you could maybe go to calculus.</p>
<p>I’ve had math competition experience, and am willing to put in the effort for calc. :)</p>