<p>The AP chem teacher at my school always says you should be at least in Pre-cal when you take the class, is this true? Because when I start this year, I will be in algebra 2 trig (GAH! should have taken this my freshman year) and in Pre cal next year.</p>
<p>I think there's 2 AP Physics here. Not sure if they're for 1 year or 2 semester, but one's for Alg2 and one's precal I believe. Named Physics AB/CD or something/</p>
<p>apparently it doesnt really make a difference</p>
<p>I got an A in calculus last year and a C in chem....go figure</p>
<p>Not very high. You don't really use anything harder than basic algebra. Pre-cal is useless for AP Chem</p>
<p>They say you should take precalc not because AP chem uses upper level math, because it doesn't. They say it because the types of problems you do in AP chem use the same thinking skills that you use in upper level math. Honestly, I think you will be fine if you are currently enrolled in algebra 2. Just make sure you study hard and do a lot of practice problems.</p>
<p>My chem teacher has said explicitly that he wants a minimum math level of Algebra 2 Trig as well, but I think the highest level math concept in ap chem has to do with logs/inverse logs for ph. The rest is mainly algebra, though heavy on dimensional analysis etc</p>
<p>I'm in algebra two also, so I hope I'm fine.</p>
<p>Last year the students at our school who took the ap exam (which did not include one of my classmates, and a kid in honors cehm took it) split basically evenly between 3s and 5s. 4 of the 7 of us were in Calc AB, two were in PreCal, and one in Calc 3. The Calc 3 kid and 3 of the AB kids were the ones who got 5s.</p>
<p>But still, the otehrs passed, so you should be fine.</p>
<p>The highest math you do in chem is log/ln, and that usually goes into your calculator anyway. Algebra II is all you need.</p>
<p>Algebra 3,4 I beleive. That's what my school requires.</p>
<p>Yeah... there's not really a lot of difficult math in AP Chem. Most is tricky algebra 2 work like some equation I can't really recall right now, but it had like three fractions with logs and natural logs and such... most of it is just "thinking" logically and understanding concepts and figuring out how to solve the problem with the variables given to you :)</p>