[silhouette]

How essential is PreCalculas to Calculus?

i have the option of taking AP Calculus BC and i never took PreCal before . I'm a junior. In my school if you did really well in math B, have a high avg in math and overall, and your math teacher recommends you, you can take it.
im really good in math, i have a 98~99 avg in math and also in math team
in addition to taking AP Cal i would have independent study to learn some topic you cover in preCal that they expect you to know in Calculus and my teacher said that will take about three weeks and i will get tested on that separately
im like 80% sure to take it unless its like i really cant follow APCal w/out PreCal???
some1 answer who took both

sidebar: also planning to take AP Chemistry
damn and i wanted my senior year be easy and have a short schedule...well thats out of the question

[xl0lxl0lx]

imo not very essential, don't take it. in my experience they didn't even teach calc in pre-calc. unfortunately it wasn't an option not to take it for me.

[jaesun]

go with calc. precal is just review and gives you a heads up on calc material. i know plenty of people that went straight to calculus without taking precal. goodluck.

[Kazen88]

I'd take precalculus first if I were you. Precalculus prepares you for Calculus BC. Calculus BC moves too fast if you've never been introduced to calculus before. You'll do much better in BC if you take precalculus first. It's so much easier to relearn something than to learn something in 2 weeks and take a test on it.

[chickyl3aby]

i took precal first to learn the basic.... well if u do skip... i'd suggest AP Cal AB.... if u take AP Cal BC... it'd cover even more than AB... and since u didn't take precal already... it might even be a lot harder!

well i thought i was good in math... till i took calculus... i'm not really good with independent study... i just took the AP Cal AB test today...

[oneday]

I would take PreCalc first. Although precalc is more like alg2/tri review, it does prepare you for calc. BC is a very very very verryyyy fast paced class (at least at my school). Our requirement to go to BC is top 3-4 people of each precalc class (i think..). The homework load is crazy and you can notNOTTT procrastinate.

Think about it this way, are you ready to learn a whole yr of hard college course in just one school year?

[ms. rachellica]

calculus is jus more challenging than precalc

[sphynkter]

so what did you take this year? algebra 2? yea that class was a breeze i used to get mad when i didn't get 100s but calculus is a whole different level. especially if you plan to take bc. if you skip right to calc bc i don't think it'll work out that well unless you don't have a bunch of other APs because in bc you cover a lot more material than ab but you still only have until may to learn it all. if you do take ap calc i think i'd suggest that you take calc ab and not bc because it may be a little too much if you have a full schedule

[plusone]

im in ur sitaution too man lol
tho i did end up taking half of precalc
i heard it wasnt too bad, dont sweat it

[catchlight]

Well I have some friends in your position that skipped Pre-Calc/Trig and went straight to Calculus BC and they're not doing as well as the others =/ You sound like you're REALLY good at math though..so hey you probably have a chance =) it depends on how much effort you're willing to put into a much more fast-paced course as opposed to a slower review of the foundations of calc. Your choice ^^

[keywoni]

I have a friend who skipped Pre-calc/trig and is currently in AP Calc BC. He's a really, really smart junior who does really well in calc.

On the other hand, there was a girl last year who skipped pre-calc/trig and did so-so except for the problems involving trig, on which she did really badly.

You sound like you're good at math....you could probably do it.

[erure]

this is what i did math-wise during high school:
9th grade: geometry
10th grade: honors algebra 2/ trigonometry
11th grade: ap calculus ab
12th grade: ap calculus bc

i didn't take precalculus and although i did okay in calculus ab and bc, i think i would have been a lot more prepared if i had taken the precalculus. i wouldn't call it a necessity but definitely helpful. if i had taken precalculus i think i could have gotten all A's in my calculus classes... plus you learn some of the calculus in precalculus too.

[kuku]

^ trig and pre calc are almost the same.
_____
To me, any math below pre-calculus is not math. It's too easy. Come on... does it take 8 years to learn what x+y is? I was learning alg II when I was in 6th grade.
lol


The thing is, pre calc does not prepare you for calc. Maybe the basic trig identities and whatnot, but I think it's rubbish. I did worse in pre calc than I did in calc. Calc is more applying while precalc is more memorization.

[erure]

^ trig and pre calc are almost the same.
_____
To me, any math below pre-calculus is not math. It's too easy. Come on... does it take 8 years to learn what x+y is? I was learning alg II when I was in 6th grade.
lol
The thing is, pre calc does not prepare you for calc. Maybe the basic trig identities and whatnot, but I think it's rubbish. I did worse in pre calc than I did in calc. Calc is more applying while precalc is more memorization.

will you ever lose that arrogant attitude? it's honestly really annoying and i hate how you set your personal views and/or experiences to a standard which everyone else must follow.

i haven't taken precalculus so i don't know exactly what you learn and how long it takes and whatnot, but from my friends, i've heard that it basically sums up everything you've learned upto the point before learning calculus, like limits and basic differentiation and other stuff like that. i guess since you're such a clever genius you don't need that kind of thing before taking calculus but a not so much bright person like me could use that and benefit from it [i don't mean to say that the topic starter is like me by this =_=]. x+y i suppose is algebra which is generally taught around 8th or 9th grade and there are still geometry, algebra 2, and trigonometry before precalculus so what would you consider those if they're "not math"?

btw if you took alg2 in 6th grade, then i guess you'd have been done with linear algebra by the time you were a senior.

[animagelet]

okay.. from my experience, i don't think it's absolutely essential to take precal before cal. at the beginning of cal, i couldn't recall a single thing i learned from precal.. Literally. because i didn't do well in precal.. i'm taking calculus now.. and i'm making a 94 average.. cal. is a review of precal and lots more (calculus is actually more fun). even though i didn't understand basic concepts of precal before i entered calculus, i'm doing pretty okay now.. So if you're good w/ trig and algebra, you'll be FINE.

[silhouette]

in my school they only offer calculus BC...i figure since most of my friends are gonna take AP Calculus BC they could help me, plus i hang with the "smart" crowd and my good friend is gonna be valedictorian, obiviously really smart so i can ask her to help me if i need help
i guess i'll be taking AP calculus after all

usually i get math concepts easily, and i could always go to the tutoring for the students that skipped precal

thanks again everyone who responded

[vc1188]

People at my school who skipped pre-calculus and went on to AP Calc AB have A LOT of trouble. I wouldn't skip it without getting a pre-calculus textbook and making sure you can do EVERYTHING in pre-calc

[sphynkter]

kuku: how is anything before precal not math? you can't just start from precal. the stuff before that is the basics. how do you expect to read english text books if you've never learned the alphabet. how would you even know how to integrate if you never learned multiplication. how would you fine the derivative of trig functions if you don't even know what trig functions are. and all the stuff before that is still math it's just not complicated math. but seriously how do you expect people to move onto the more complex things in math if they just bypass algebra, geometry, algebra 2, and trig. all that stuff is pretty much the groundwork of what's to come later on in calculus.

everyone learns at a different pace. so it doesn't really matter when you learned what because it's not really a competition between you and the rest of the world [well maybe it is in your mind]. maybe i seem a little hostile but everytime you post you have this arrogant air about you.

[Lebanese_Blonde]

you should take AP calc AB unless math is like your very strongest subject. then go for BC

[rong_con88]

unless u're super smart you should do it, but i'm in precal right now n so far all the stuffs that we did were all like reviews from alg 2 nothing new. i find it hard to remember all the stuff that i did in alg 2, but u sounded like u're really good at math so try it, if u dont do good in BC then u could still drop down to AB, that's how my school is n i'm taking BC next year too.