<p>What is the purpose of that course? Someone told me that nothing you use in it will prepare you for Calculus.</p>
<p>My pre calc course covered a lot of trig, some vector stuff, and some matrix stuff. The most useful thing that I got out of it was the trig stuff. You really need to know trig once you get to calculus. But honestly, the hardest part of calculus for me is the algebra. It can get pretty hairy at times.</p>
<p>well that guy is mistaken…even if you passed Alg2 with flying colors, extra practice is always good</p>
<p>To make a bunch of high school kids mad that they have to take it. That is the main purpose that I can see.</p>
<p>That and reinforcing trigonometry.</p>
<p>It will depend on the school. Some schools probably do a lot of trig in Geometry and Algebra 2, in my school they pushed that off for Precalc, so that what we needed it for. </p>
<p>And I’ll go with the “extra practice is always good”</p>
<p>Yeah, in all seriousness, it really is just an extension of the algebra series that they use to get you extra practice in algebra and to introduce certain concepts that will be used extensively as the calculus series progresses, such as trigonometry, matrices, vectors, logarithms, parametric equations, and various other things I can’t really remember.</p>
<p>By the time you get done with all your math, you will forget everything that was in Pre-Calculus because it will all just be like second nature to you.</p>
<p>In my HS precalc was everything after factoring in algebra. We didnt learn any Trig or even take Geometry unless you took Pre-calc. </p>
<p>I graduated HS not knowing was sin/cos was. But thats the public school system.</p>
<p>That is NOT public school system. I went to public school and did all the things that I talked about in my last post.</p>
<p>I think that most good precalc books have a section on rates of change and may cover the basic idea of the derivative. In high-school, students can miss course material due to illness, vacations, etc. They use the spiraling approach where a lot of material is repeated so that it sinks in or provides coverage for students that missed some of the material.</p>
<p>My favorite part of pre-calc was matrices and using them to solve linear systems on my calculator for me! No more substitution or linear combinations!</p>
<p>In the pre-calculus book I studied at home, I studied algebra that I use in calculus (partial fractions, etc.), trig stuff (identities, etc.), complex numbers, conics, parametric equations, all about graphing, etc. Nothing on limits, however. Usually in pre-calc you cover limits, I think. I don’t know who told you that pre-calc was useless, I wonder what they studied. Pre-calc lays the foundation for what you cover in calc I, II, III (and IV if your school does quarters).</p>
<p>Conic sections are discussed in Pre Calc. A guy once told me that you will never see conic sections in Calculus.</p>
<p>In my opinion, college algebra an trig are sufficient to take calculus. </p>
<p>At my college, pre calc and trig are two separate courses.</p>
<p>striver87: In Multivariable Calculus, I’m seeing three-dimensional versions of conic sections, such as ellipsoids, spheres, and hyperboloids. So your statement is inaccurate.</p>
<p>I actually saw conic sections in my high school’s Algebra 2/Trig class and Pre-Calc was had a lot of trigonometric identities, basic limits and derivatives. The thing with public math courses is that they all have jumbled up names and curriculums. So my Pre-Calculus class may not be your Pre-Calc. However, I think university Calculus should be fairly similar in material.</p>
<p>Conic sections were discussed in my pre calc class too.</p>
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<p>It is in NY.</p>
<p>In NY State, or NYC? There is a difference. It is a well known fact that most urban public school systems are severely lacking. That does not indict the entire public school system in the state or country of the same deficiencies.</p>
<p>US public education is failing on a global standard. But it doesnt matter, forget it.</p>
<p>That isn’t true though. It is failing in respect to the top echelon of countries in education, but not on a global standard. Personally, I find it troubling that we lag behind such countries as France, but that is hardly a global standard. You are leaving out plenty of countries in that assessment.</p>
<p>Currently, Pre Calc is the flaming garbage can I’m willingly tossing my cash into. I have to take it as a requirement for Calc I @ my college. The first half of my Pre Calc course in 10th grade was just an Algebra 2 refresher.</p>