<p>I'm taking Calc AB next year, and I'm facing a dilemma at the moment. I'm going to take a year long Calculus AB class next year, but the teacher is abysmal. I took trigonometry from her and learned nothing at all for a whole semester; she allowed us to take resources into tests and so I would basically write down the "practice" problems onto a sheet and copy them onto the tests.... and I also failed the final horribly when she didn't allow us to use additional materials.</p>
<p>Is there any hope that I can pretty much "self-study" using that textbook??</p>
<p>I am also planning on using Princeton Review and Barron's for prep and additional guidance on topics that may stump me along the way. Should this be enough materials to guarantee a 5 on Calc AB???</p>
<p>My school also uses that book too. For me, I use that book to self-study for the AP Calculus AB exam. Although it taught me most of the material, it didn’t prepare me for analysis of graph at the calculus level. So, I use the DS Marketing Calculus Practice exams and Princeton Review. I also practiced the Free-Response Questions on collegeboard, where it released the past years’ AP Calc FR. Since I receive the mail, I ought to tell you that I receive a 5 on the Calc AB exam.</p>
<p>I’ve had teachers who are just terrible and never teach, but it’s is always the student’s responsibility to ensure he/she knows the material. Anyways, enough LECTURE :p</p>
<p>AB should be quite easy to self study, which is pretty much what I did even though I was in calcAB. I just ignored the teacher and her orthodox teaching methods and dug into books. (She made us draw and color on graph paper for EACH FREAKING GRAPH WE HAD!$!@#$!@$239523rmsdfa) It was RIDICULOUS to shade integrals, derivates, and THE GRAPH in different colors. </p>
<p>You’ll be fine if you just study from the books as I did.</p>
<p>Hey, I took Calc BC and 5’d the exam with that book (most thanks to our teacher–amazing).</p>
<p>I think what you need to do (other than self-study that abysmally confusing book) is get a Princeton Review Calc Book or Calculus for Beginners book by Kaplan. It’s perfect for your situation.</p>
<p>Also, you don’t really need to know much trig. All you need to know is the trig identities and you should do awesome. </p>
<p>You don’t even really need to know many trig identities to do Calc AB. Knowing your basic unit circle trig can be very helpful, though.</p>
<p>This year, I’ll be teaching out of an earlier version of Larson. I think the most difficult task for you if your teacher is inadequate is picking out what’s truly important from the homework set. The homework sets in Larson are lengthy (averaging almost 100 problems per section), and while some of the problems are truly unimportant if you have a solid precalculus foundation, I’ve found the Larson book in particular has a number of problems that have the, “Oh, and by the way, let’s get you thinking about this idea that you’re going to need later.”</p>
<p>In my experience, those are the problems that the self-studiers tend to skip, and it makes their life a little bit more difficult.</p>
<p>TheMathProf is right. The Larson book does give excellent problems near the end of each problem set. They’re thinker questions. And yes, of course, know your unit circle.</p>
<p>I did learn the unit circle; a brief look at it again should pretty much bring all the memories back. I learned how to use trig identities, but didn’t actually learn the formulas.</p>
<p>TheMathProf, you summed up my main concern perfectly. My math teacher either 1) doesn’t give us homework, or 2) assigns every problem from the section and then doesn’t bother checking them the next day. Next year is going to be the first year she is teaching AP Calc, so I know for sure that she won’t know what the good problems are.</p>
<p>I’ll focus on the problems at the end of each set. Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>Now that my main fears have been assuaged, I just have to decide on which book I should get to complement PR: DS Marketing or Barron’s.</p>