<p>Hi everyone, I'm a year ahead in math but not in the honors math track in my school. I want to take AP Calculus AB as a senior (I'm in regular Pre-Calculus right now and my grade is around a 96-97). Do you think I would be able to succeed in AP Calc despite not having gone through the honors math track? Thank you for your advice in advance.</p>
<p>(My other options for senior year math are regular Calculus and AP Statistics).</p>
<p>Yeah…I don’t think whether you took honors math or not has much to do with anything, as long as you have all the prerequisite knowledge.</p>
<p>What prerequisites should I know?</p>
<p>IMO the word “honors” is starting to mean less and less. My HS doesn’t have an honors math course or whatever. You’ll want a solid algebra and trig background to do well in AP Calculus.</p>
<p>Many schools (including my own) don’t even have honors math, but those students still do just fine in AP Calc (I ended up with an A in the class and 4 on the exam, without honors math). </p>
<p>Just make sure you understand many types of functions (linear, exponential, logarithmic, trigonometric, etc). Know how they work, how to solve them, etc. You should be good at algebraically manipulating equations as well. These are things most students struggle with in my experience, but as long as you did well in Algebra II & Precalculus you should be just fine.</p>
<p>I took AP Calculus AB and did pretty well in it without honors math track (in fact, I didn’t even do nearly as well as you in normal Pre-Calculus and still got an A in the class and a 4 on the exam. I’m now not taking calc in college! :D). If you can, get a Barron’s review book the summer before and just brush over a bunch of the concepts so it’s more of a review when you get into the classroom.</p>
<p>Brush up on functions and Algebra II skills. They will be vital. Khan Academy is also a helpful resource. I struggled with Calc at first, but ended up with an A. I’m not the most talented math student but with hard work, I was able to succeed in both the class and the exam.</p>
<p>ITA with baileyj57’s advice. If you understand polynomial, rational, exponential, logarithmic and trigonometric functions, you know what you need to know in order to study calculus.</p>
<p>that’s probably fine, there aren’t even any honors math classes in my school (only weighted math classes are AB and BC calculus, and ap stats)</p>
<p>What is “regular” Calculus though? Isn’t “regular” Calculus just Calculus AB?</p>
<p>Not necessarily. My school only has a non-AP calculus class.</p>
<p>Regular calculus goes at a much slower pace than AP Calc AB (including an extensive, multi-week review of Pre-Calc). She does not assign as much homework and probably only about 3/4 of the topics covered in AB are covered in regular.</p>
<p>What about AP Stats? How do the difficulties of AB and Stats compare?</p>
<p>Most people find stats easier, but it’s not completely universal. I actually thought Calculus BC was easier than Stats, but I think it’s because calculus was more interesting to me and I spent more time on it. I dunno.</p>