<p>Many people who took pre-cal at my school said, it was basically a review of Algebra 2, and it looks bad to be a senior taking pre-cal. </p>
<p>Anyways, I want to prepare for Calculus AB, I'm thinking of getting a review book. Is Princeton Review be a good choice?</p>
<p>Princeton Review seems to be the best review book for calculus. However skipping precalc isn<code>t a good thing for everyone and isn</code>t as easy as some may say. How are your math skills?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t use the Princeton Review book to learn the pre-calc stuff. But, during the year and before the AP test it would help.</p>
<p>A lot of pre-calc (at least at my school) was polar and parametric form of functions. This stuff is fairly straight foward and is only mentioned briefly in the Calc BC curriculum and I do not believe it is in AB. If you teacher decides to teach it, she will probaly have to review it for the whole class, and depending on your math skills that may be enough for you to learn that. </p>
<p>Another large portion was conics: hyperbolas, parabolas, ellipses, circles. You will not need this for Calculus at all. </p>
<p>The thing the most important that is taught in pre-calc is trigometry. If you want to skip it you will want to practice all the trig identities, not just sin is opp/hyp. For example sin^2 x +cos^2 x=1 or sin (x+y)=sin x cos y + cos x sin y. You will need these quite a bit for your study of calculus. </p>
<p>It is definitely do able to skip pre-calc depending on your math skills, but it may take a bit of work.</p>
<p>“Another large portion was conics: hyperbolas, parabolas, ellipses, circles. You will not need this for Calculus at all.”</p>
<p>Not at all? I’m so glad to hear that. How about matrices? It doesn’t seem sensible that knowledge of that topic would be needed in AB Calculus, am I right?</p>
<p>Matrices are definitely not needed at all for any AP Calculus (AB and BC).</p>
<p>So basically only the trig part of Precalc is needed for AP Calculus? That’s great.</p>
<p>I skipped precalc and did not study. You will have no difficulties with AP Calculus AB, I guarantee you.</p>
<p>OP, I was in the same boat as you. I neither studied for Pre Calc nor took the course, but I studied AP Calc BC on my own and got a 5 on the BC exam and 5 on the AB subscore. I prepared for AB too and I know a lot of material there, and it seems that much of Pre Calculus isn’t needed, except trig and geometric analysis (drawing graphs of polynomials, multiplicity, and a bevy of rise and fall… those stuff.)</p>