HELP!Math: 9th grader in desperate need for advice!

<p>Hi Guys, I'm a freshman in HS and lately, my favorite subject has become math and bio, albeit is used to be English (Slight preference for math over bio). I'm in all honors courses, and plan on taking the most AP's and electives possible over the course of high sschool. However, one mistake which I enormously regret is not taking the Math 9 advanced class in 8th grade. Now I'm learning algebra which is very easy, but I hear from my fellow peers in advanced math (geometry; they took algebra regents already), that geometry isn't too much of a challenge. I wish I was in that accelerated course, but I recently heard of a possibilty of learning geometry during the summer (3 hours a day), and then taking the Regents in August. Is this possible (assuming my school will give credit) from a state/legal point of view? Will I be able to take the Regents in August? How hard can it be to teach myself Geometry in 50 days? Is it worthwhile? If so, how can I teach myself (which books, what topics etc.) Please, I need counsel, and I beg of you not to poke fun, this is a serious question.</p>

<p>Geometry for the purpose of high school can be learned over the course of 14 days, 12 of which will be spent memorizing Theorems/Axioms/etc. Any second-hand geometry textbook would do, to be honest; I personally prefer Art of Problem Solving’s “Introduction to Geometry”, but that book goes beyond what a high school student is expected to know and delves into it from an advanced point of view. (Try the CTY summer course as well?)</p>

<p>Legally there is no problem with skipping courses. I personally skipped geometry in 7th grade and went right into Algebra II without any transcript/credit problems.</p>

<p>The norm for math is typically Algebra II in freshman, pre-calc in Sophomore year and Calc in Junior/Senior year, or pushed one year back for schools where the AP calculus curriculum is squeezed into one year rather than 2.</p>

<p>Yup. A lot of people take math courses over the summer. My friend took pre-calc over the summer.</p>

<p>Wow! Poster #1, very interesting! In my school, freshman take Integrated Algebra…is that delayed?</p>

<p>Yup, totally possible as demonstrated by many others who have done this. Just make sure your school allows this. But actually, if it were me, I would take a course over summer/self study Algebra II instead of geometry 'cause it’s way easier. I didn’t even try in Alg II. But yeah, that’s just me.</p>

<p>Lol ok…but where and when do I take the Geometry Regents? And how?</p>

<p>Algebra 1 as a freshman is average. Usually, the top 20% of math students take Geometry.</p>

<p>While it certainly is possible to gain admission to a top school at your current place, you won’t make it to AP Calculus and that will be a significant disadvantage, as well as the less rigorous courseload that you will have.</p>

<p>Take Geometry over the summer and you’ll be fine. I had the exact same problem as you, except that I took Honors Geometry at the same time as Algebra 1.</p>

<p>I screwed up in Algebra 2, though.</p>

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<p>“Algebra II” and “easy” or any of its synonyms thereof should never be used in the same sentence :P. </p>

<p>Alg II is essentially linear algebra crammed into a single year of high school, with a ton of unexplained content that you are simply asked to memorize. Linear Algebra is pretty much universally agreed upon as one of the most difficult freshman Uni math subjects ever and putting that into a HS curriculum is just preposterous.</p>

<p>You can’t take a regents test without taking the course…</p>

<p>New York, correct?</p>

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<p>what the hell kind of algebra 2 are you learning haha</p>

<p>I’m with md5. Nice username, by the way. :wink: </p>

<p>At any rate, this sounds a lot like NYS - the idea of “regents” (I think we are the only state that has them…) and Biology in 9th grade for Honors students. With that being said, NYS sets the system up like this: Algebra, Geometry, and then Trigonometry. NYS requires three years of math - thus 9th to 11th. If you are in honors (I was), you take the first class in 8th grade, so you span from 8th to 10th. Ideally, you will take AP Calculus AB in 11th grade, BC and/or Multivar in 12th.</p>

<p>The OP is on the NYS Regents/Regular path and will complete all necessary credits in 11th grade. I would look into the honors classes that double up the years. I was the last year to use the A/B format, so I am not too sure how the new system is ran entirely, but I’m pretty sure there is some honors class that knocks out Trig and Precalc in the same year. </p>

<p>(I dropped out of Honors in 9th grade, so I was just a year ahead - I was in 10th grade classes freshman year, 11th grade classes in sophomore year, 12th grade classes in senior year [you can take precalc, which is after trig on the NYS scale and not required for graduation], and I didn’t take a math this year… but if I did, it would have been AB.)</p>

<p>you new yorkers have a very elegant system, or so it seems.</p>

<p>in new jersey (or at least in my town) the mathematics sequence is as such:</p>

<p>Algebra in 8th grade
honors geometry in 9th
honors algebra 2 in 10th
honors pre-calculus in 11th
AP calc BC in 12th</p>

<p>I wish I had some more challenging math courses though, like my friend who goes to a magnet school in my county. his math sequence is:</p>

<p>Advanced Analysis 1 - Freshman Year
Advanced Analysis 2 - Sophomore Year
AP Calc BC - Junior Year
Linear Algebra/Differential Equations or Multivariate Calculus Senior Year</p>

<p>damn i wish i had applied to his school</p>