<p>I'm a senior in high school about to drop out of Calculus AB.</p>
<p>The reason being: I don't understand the conceptual aspect of it.</p>
<p>I took Algebra I my freshman year and it was fairly easy, I ended up with an A.
I took Geometry and Algebra II (I wanted to double-up, so I could catch up to the smart students.) Both were easy, and I ended up with an A in both classes. My junior year, I took pre-Cal, and it was extremely simple granted I had an awesome teacher who explained everything. (She also taught Calculus BC - most of her students got a 5 on the AP). </p>
<p>However, now, Calculus AB is a nightmare. It is so complicated for me. I don't understand limits, and half-understand derivatives. The teacher just skims through problems assuming that most students understand. She may be right, since most students in my class came from pre-Cal (honors), where as I did not. </p>
<p>Is Calculus AB that hard? Is it just the teacher? Should I wait a little while? I have a 68 right now...</p>
<p>I took online tutoring, but it is failing to work. I go to tutorials in the morning, I have to wake up at 5:30 am, my last test grade was an 80, but the first quiz of the year, I basically failed miserably. It’s really the teacher. I know I may come off as being biased because I’m a student, but it’s true. Most of the kids have already grasped the concepts in pre-Cal honors, I just need the teacher to go over the problems and how to work them out more slowly and thoroughly. Will it really look bad on my transcript if I did not do any math my senior year? It’s too late to switch to Statistics.</p>
<p>I suggest you get Princeton Review’s Calculus prep book since it explains everything in simple terms. If you still don’t understand, then you need to learn to think mathematically.</p>
<p>Think the concepts as the following:
Limits: when this x values approaches this, what does the y-value approach?
Derivatives: the rate of change (y-y/x-x)
Integrals: area under a curve; antiderivative</p>
<p>Didn’t take calc in hs, only took stats and precal with an easy ass teacher and a bunch of dumb****s - I had a 70 test average curved to an A and I never studied (I barely knew the unit circle)</p>
<p>Boom - college, Math 31a, derivates, I’m behind everybody already, I get a 32/100 on the first test! I just sat myself down and studied. It’s hard, but i get it now. I ended up w/ a B in the class because I got 100/100 on hw, 90/90 on quizes (which were just hw probs), a 72/100 on the second test, and a 181/200 on the final. I just talked to the prof and said I ****ed up and that I was nervous.</p>
<p>Calculus is extremely easy. Just read the textbook (read it again if you must). don’t drop it, drop something else if you have to, Calculus is probably the most important subject you will learn in highschool.</p>
<p>I love Calc. When you are younger you just do problems blindly move on to the next one. In calc, if you just think about what you are doing and why, it is amazing. Math is beautiful if you just give it a chance.
/Spoken like a math/physics major.</p>
<p>Btw props for liking Bio. AP bio was so boring I fell asleep literally every time I tried to study the book.</p>