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Can someone tell me WTF "pre-calculus" is meant to mean? AFAICT, it's just a fancy word for algebra.
by cabalamat 17y ago
Can someone tell me WTF "pre-calculus" is meant to mean? AFAICT, it's just a fancy word for algebra.
- euroclydon 17y agoIf I remember, since geometry is such a large topic, pre-calculus also teaches the parts of geometry necessary for traditional calculus study. That way, the geometry course can be made more simple.
- cabalamat 17y agoYou don't need any geometry to understand algebra. Though graphs (and therefore cartesian co-ordinates) certainly help).
- euroclydon 17y agoTo understand calculus, not algebra.
- cabalamat 17y agoWell corrected. |You don't need geometry to understand calculus, either.
- tokenadult 17y agoPrecalculus is the usual current designation in the United States for a secondary school course that includes functions and trigonometry, and perhaps also matrix algebra. Many remedial courses in math in colleges will have the title "college algebra" while others will have the title "precalculus," with much the same content.
- jff 17y agoWhen I took pre-calc, it was a very basic and slow build-up to integrals and derivatives, IIRC. We had already had two classes in algebra, one in geometry, and one in functions, statistics, and trigonometry.
- jacobolus 17y agoTrigonometry + limits, and some simple applications.