<p>So I'm a junior & I'm in algebra II right now. next year i can either take pre-cal or calculus. i'm pretty good at math, and alot of my friends who are in calculus right now and never took pre cal said they're doing fine.
anyway, should i take pre cal next year or just go straight into calculus? like do you think pre cal is really needed?</p>
<p>You should know trigonometry.</p>
<p>It really depends. If your friends are doing well, you should be fine too. My Calc BC teach didn’t go back and review any pre-calc stuff. She just assumed you knew it; and my pre-calc teach wasn’t that great so I played catch-up the first of the year. Also, is your friends definition of ‘fine’ the same as yours? I know people that are just ‘fine’ with pulling a ‘C’. </p>
<p>Bottom line, I would do calc (looks better on transcript) and if you feel it is too much after a couple of exams, drop down to pre-calc before the drop/add date.</p>
<p>forgot about trig…that would be helpful.</p>
<p>It depends on what topics your Algebra II class covered. At some schools, Algebra II by itself is sufficient enough to move on to Calculus. At other schools, one must take Algebra II and then some form of Trigonometry or Precalculus before being prepared for Calculus. Some things that you should know are Vectors, Polar Functions, Parametrics, Conic Sections, Trigonometric Identities/Unit Circle/Graphing, Limits, Optimization, Sequence and Series, Complex Numbers, Permutations & Combinations, Piecewise Functions, Logarithms, Lines, Bearings, and Matrices. You definitely may not need all of these, but this is usually what is covered in the later portion of Algebra II and Precalculus.</p>
<p>you definitely need some trig for calculus and some understanding of radians but really I haven’t used much in Calc that I learned last year in Pre-Calc. depends on how your classes are taught though</p>
<p>You need to know pre-calc topics. This is coming from a guy who is in pre-calc and calc at the same time. It’s a little harder, but if you study pre-calc and make sure you understand it, then calc won’t be too hard.</p>
<p>I can’t remember learning anything is pre-calc that was important for Calc BC. Actually, at my school pre-calc was pretty much a review of everything we’d learned (and maybe some more in-depth stuff, I don’t recall).</p>
<p>For Calculus you need:
a good understanding of sine and cosine
trig identities are helpful
a good grasp of how functions work and how they’re graphed
algebra</p>
<p>Seriously, at most 20% of calculus is calculus stuff. The other 80% is using algebra to move numbers around into a more usable format.</p>
<p>LonelyHapax reminded me of something my dad, who is an engineer, told me.</p>
<p>Calculus will teach you algebra and Differential Equations will teach you calculus. I guess that and Sohcahtoa is all one needs to succeed in math.</p>
<p>Calculus seemed somehow easier, though. Someone asked me for help with a pre-calc problem and I forgot how to do it so I had to use calculus to solve it.</p>
<p>^ Lots of precalc is memorizing formulas. If you can derive the answer using Calculus, you really understand what’s going on.</p>
<p>Trig. So much trig.
It’s also easier to memorize derivatives/integrals of cosine and sine if you know what the graphs look like, and you can graph the derivative of a function. I still have to think about it, and I’m in second year calculus.
Also, although we didn’t really go over this in my class too much, some integrals require a knowledge of trig identities. Like sine or cosine to any power other than one.
@LonelyHapax: Sums up my feelings about calculus exactly. If you didn’t get your algebra classes REALLY well you’re going to have problems.</p>
I was considering taking calc 1 and pre calc at the same time but decided it would be TOO hard for me because i basically failed pre calc:(
Depends on the Calc course. If it’s AB, Alg II should be sufficient; if it’s BC, you need precalc because of things like polar equations, parametrics, etc. BC also goes extremely fast, so you need an extremely good grasp of all algebra concepts.
It really depends on your school, like others have pointed out. At my school, the top student(s) in Math II and Math III (Geometry and Alg. 2) can skip precalc and go straight into AP Calc AB. My school does not offer BC, so people can do this and succeed.
“precalc” is an incredibly vague term that varies from one school to the next.
You need a heavy foundation in Algebra II & Trig.
OP consider doing pre-calc at a community college over the summer thus going straight into high school calc (even AP)
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