<p>Hey everyone i'm an incoming freshman at CAL. I've heard many horror stories about how hard math 1B is at Berkeley. hahaha so fellow Bears who have taken or heard about Math 1B, please share your experience with me and many others! Thanks Thanks!!</p>
<p>oh and i've noticed many people are taking Math 1A again regardless of the 5's on their AP Calculus BC tests. Share your reasons?
see you guys soon! In less than 3 weeks now!!</p>
<p>As of right now, I enrolled into Math 53. I was going to take Math 1B until I realized the only reason I was doing so was to "review" series. I think the difficulty of the class is wholly dependent on who you get as a teacher.</p>
<p>Depends on the teacher. And yes, it can be a ballbuster.</p>
<p>Max Pain!!</p>
<p>MAX PAIN? OOOOOOOOOOO holy ****.
how so</p>
<p>Some profs make the curve pretty ridiculous. I think the 1B course is created to be much harder than it really needs to be.</p>
<p>jeffdccoolest: a lot of people retake Math1A/B because some science majors require it, particularly those in MCB.</p>
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<p>jeffdccoolest: a lot of people retake Math1A/B because some science majors require it, particularly those in MCB.
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<p>Oh, so its not necessarily the difficulty of the Math 1B material itself that makes Math 1B hard? It's mainly the curve that makes things hard? So if you basically study your butt off, you'll do fine (as long as there aren't a ton of math geniuses in your class)?</p>
<p>And I've heard stories that Math 1A is WORSE than Math 1B...is that true?</p>
<p>Math 1A is nowhere near as difficult as Math 1B, first semester calculus in general is pretty easy.</p>
<p>Math 1B, on the other hand, has a failure rate hovering 50+ percent.</p>
<p>is that failure rate because of the curve or because of the difficulty of the material?</p>
<p>i doubt that 50% of students fail (D or F) the class, but yes it is harder. i'd say it's because it has a lot of stuff where you just have to kind of "see" the answer</p>
<p>A few years ago a math 1b professor did fail 50% of the students. </p>
<p>Yes, Max Pain!!</p>
<p>From my secret engineering contact, Haiman and Borcherds are the "good ones". Haiman supposedly more interesting although he gives harder tests.</p>
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Oh, so its not necessarily the difficulty of the Math 1B material itself that makes Math 1B hard? It's mainly the curve that makes things hard? So if you basically study your butt off, you'll do fine (as long as there aren't a ton of math geniuses in your class)?
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<p>Well...it's undeniable that the material in 1B is harder than in 1A because 1A is just limits, derivatives, basic integrals, and some rotational volume stuff. 1B is more advanced integrals, techniques of integration, sequences and series (TAYLOR SERIES WHOOOOPDEE FREAKIN DOO!), and ordinary differential equations. So yeah, I think the material is somewhat harder, which just gives you more reason to study harder. But I think it's mainly the curve that really screws the students. Again, this class is designed to be a weeder course so they can whittle down the pool in order to ensure enough resources for the students going into upper div.</p>
<p>My math1B prof this past spring failed ~35-40% of the students.</p>
<p>Fail as in D or F? No matter what, 35% of the students will receive a C+ or lower in any math 1b course.</p>
<p>wow, failed 35%...?! so let's see, the class i'm currently enrolled in has 135 students, so out of that aoubt 47/135 failed? damn! Too lazy or what? GOT WEED OUT man!!
btw, when i signed up for Math 1B during telebears i only saw two available classes, one with Tataru (the one i signed up for) and the other one is with Zworski i think. I thought there are a lot more professors teaching math 1B?? oh and i heard Tataru is horribly hard on tests -_-", great!</p>
<p>Good thing I took that crap in a community college during high school.</p>
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I thought there are a lot more professors teaching math 1B??
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<p>Nope, there's usually only 2 or 3 profs teaching it in a given semester. There's probably fewer people taking 1B in the fall than in the spring, since more people take 1A first instead of taking 1B directly.</p>
<p>i got a 5 on calc bc but i'm still taking math 1b.</p>
<p>I took calc BC and got crushed by Math 1A...but then again I had the hardest teacher I've ever had. Math 1B is hard but I had a teacher that didn't curve at all so many students were bound to fail. But honestly, the difficulty of a class depends on the professor.</p>
<p>Hmm...how good is Zworski? RMP says he is better that Tataru, but that's all I know.</p>