I’m finishing up my senior schedule and want some opinions on whether or not to take AP Calculus AB. At my school, AB is in the Fall and BC is in the Spring (optional), so my question only concerns AB since spring semester is less important. I took pre-calc sophomore year, and while I got an A both semesters (only 2/40 got As), it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears… and it was only regulars lol. As a talented procrastinator, I signed up for AP Statistics junior year (only junior in the class) instead of AP calc like all of my friends were doing. I really would like to take AP calc because it is an important class on a resume and I enjoyed intro stuff (like limits), but I don’t know how far I can go after forgetting pre-calc. For some background information, I’ve gotten straight A’s in my math courses (including stats) and got 730 math on SAT. Should I take the class? And did any of you find calculus more engaging/intuitive than pre-calc? Thanks!
I’d say it’s a bit disingenuous to say you don’t know pre-calc if you aced it. 
Yes, it might take you a few days to catch up, but I think you’ll be fine. You can always review over the summer if you’re so inclined. Indeed, many AP Calc classes require summer assignments anyway.
Why not review the material over the summer? Hey, be an active learning not a passive student!
@lostaccount @skieurope I could try to cram pre-calc into the summer and re-learn it but I’ll probably be at a disadvantage to all the students that had spent their previous year on pre-calc. How important is pre-calculus to calculus? Some of my friends said that they didn’t need to use any pre-calc knowledge except trig functions.
@ambitionsquared There’s a lot in precalc that you’ll never use again in calc–in fact, the two courses don’t really align as much as their names would suggest. That sentiment is a double edged sword though–the fact you aced precalc is not a great predictor of how well you’ll do in calc. I’ve seen friends who were consistently receiving high As in pre-calc flat-out fail calculus tests (top students and same teacher at a competitive school, mind you). All hearsay, and could be anomalies. Take with a grain of salt.
Chance me?
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19229298#Comment_19229298
Precalc basically reviews all that you’ve had in math. So it strengthens that foundation on which you build calculus but calc is new material.