I’m freshman headed to university in the fall. During high school I took AP Calculus AB and BC. My teacher didn’t do the best job preparing us for the actual test or teaching us the actual theorems and concepts. I have yet to get my BC scores back, but I failed AB. As for the content, I definitely know the AB concepts at this point in time, but I still struggle with more difficult integrals and everything beyond that. Basically all the BC stuff.
The problem is, I’m not the best test taker. Especially when it comes to AP exams. In both my AP classes, I got As. It was by no means an easy class. I just ended up becoming nervous and making a crazy amount of mistakes on the AP exams. That’s why I’m still not confident in the BC exam that I just took, even with my AB subscore.
In order to prepare myself for calc at university, I decided to take a class at my local college. I was hoping to get placement into Calc II because that’s just what don’t understand, but they said I had to take Calc I first. Same for my university. So to make up for any crappy AP score, I just decided to go ahead and take the $600 plunge on basically an expensive review course. Even though it’s only 8 weeks long, it’s moving pretty slow. I literally know everything everything on the course schedule and our professor has pointed out Calc III and III concepts that I already understand (my teacher taught ahead instead of prepping us for AP). My first exam is coming up next week and I’ll probably use calculus concepts we have yet to learned. I feel confident I could take the final for the class today and pass with a 85% or above.
I just don’t know what my options are. I asked the placement offices and they said that they don’t offer placement beyond Calc I. Would this be okay to bring up to the professor?
Just finish Calc 1, I’m a math major and if you understand what a derivative and integrals actually are (tangent plane/line and area under a curve) and the inverse trig functions sin^-1 and so forth, then you will do fine in Calc 2. I’m taking discrete math and Diffy Q during the summer so taking math courses during the summer is better in my opinion. Community Colleges have to put you into Calc 1 and if the class patches up just one hole in your theory of Calc 1 then it was worth the $600. If you can go into Calc 2 with Stokes/Greene’s theorem and understand things like the fundmental theorem of Calc then you will destroy college Calc. When you get to your college you can do a challenge exam to place into Calc 3, but why don’t you just get your feet wet in a course you already know. Trust me, your AP teacher might of talked about Calc 3 material but you have not worked with 3 dimensional space yet. You could screw yourself over by trying to jump the gun because of two reasons; your Calc 3 could be a proof based class…you have not proofed yet hahahahh and don’t think you have unless your just a phenomenal student. Or your class could be a computational based course which uses a package like MatLab, in which case Calc 1 would be Overkill to learn how to use that but a Calc 2 course would get you well aquianted with how to use that. So don’t rush it, you have done well in Calc which means you have high potential for math. Your going to take something called linear algebra, then you will hit diffy q, do not take these together!!! I would take linear first then use those concepts for diffy q. After Differentials your on to analysis and pretty much done with anything that could be considered easy. I am 26 and have two years left in my undergraduate. I will still be considered young at 28 going into grad school for mathematics. You are doing extremely well don’t get discouraged, and program everyday as well as read your Bible.
I assume you’re taking summer Calc I for an actual grade right now? If you do well, then you should be able to take Calc II when you start at your actual institution.
If you end up studying anything in the “TEM” part of STEM, or physics, then calculus is going to be important for a lot of future classes. I think that it is worth the time and cost to make sure that you know this very well.
If you end up as a math major, then I guarantee that math courses in the future will become challenging and interesting at some point, even if this isn’t until after your first year of university.
I love the fact that someone at this level is still blaming the teacher for his failing grade.
At what point does your education become your responsibility? (I know the answer in my house, just wondering about the world-- or at least the College Confidential world-- at large.)
First off, I’m a girl and I’ve never failed a class in my life? In fact, I graduated in the top 10th percentile of my class and I attended one of the best high schools in my state. I’ve never even gotten a C… and I don’t plan on doing so in college either.
In high school, my teacher neglected to bring up several topics covered on the exam. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I assumed getting an A in the class (which I got both years) meant I was ready to pass the test. A majority of the class failed though. I think it’s safe to say that when I’m getting an A in the class, do horribly on the actual exam, and a majority of the class fails as well… part of it may have to do with the instructor.
So far, my college calculus class has been far more helpful than high school calculus. I know all the content already, but my professor actually teaches rather than going off on random tangents and teaching us things we don’t need to know until Calculus III.
Your comment was unnecessary. It is possible to have negligent teachers who value bragging about their PhD over actually teaching. I was 16/17 and no one in my family ever even made it to taking a calc class because they were poor immigrants. A few of my classmates could ask mommy and daddy for help while I took my butt to the library for free tutoring. Anyway, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
I forgot how unnecessarily rude people here can be. I just wish people would be uplifting rather than assume every kid who made a mistake is a lazy student.
I just wish people would be uplifting rather than assume every kid who made a mistake is a lazy student.