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> That student who breezed unchallenged through algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, will breeze through calculus, too. I took calculus last year (AB Calc BC,

> That student who breezed unchallenged through algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, will breeze through calculus, too. I took calculus last year (AB Calc BC, 10th grade), and I can say that my experience was certainly a counterexample. I did OK, but it was definitely a marked difference from "breezing through" algebra.

nerdponx 8y ago
Likewise. I had an easy time in high school math. In college I really had to work for it.
tomrod 8y ago
I expect it was more of a teacher issue then. A solid math teacher is worth their weight in platinum.
- dTal 8y ago
  I had an excellent Calculus teacher in high school, and I did very well on the AP exam. It was still vastly more challenging than the trigonometry class that preceded it. Even today, I use trigonometry all the time almost without thinking, but I can't for the life of me remember how to long-divide polynomials (or picture a scenario where I'd need to). There's just so friggin much deeply abstract symbol manipulation in calculus class (which in school also covers essentially "advanced algebra"). It's a different ball game.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Long division of polynomials is literally exactly the same algorithm as long division of base-10 integers, except with no carrying.
Jach 8y ago
I got As in my pre-college math courses but I don't think I breezed through them. My schooling had no separate trig course, it went algebra, geometry, intermediate algebra, and calculus. Various pre- or honors versions. Since the BC exam covers quite a bit more material than the AB, my school teacher required those interested in it to take pre-calculus Honors first which was mostly about shoring up any gaps in previous studies while getting a foothold on Calculus AB material near the end. I think that extra prep made a huge difference in my performance, along with the teacher himself and an insistence on memorizing a lot of things to not be dependent on a rule sheet and getting an intuition for solving problems that even the TI-89 wouldn't help much with.

nerdponx 8y ago

Likewise. I had an easy time in high school math. In college I really had to work for it.

tomrod 8y ago

I expect it was more of a teacher issue then. A solid math teacher is worth their weight in platinum.

dTal 8y ago
I had an excellent Calculus teacher in high school, and I did very well on the AP exam. It was still vastly more challenging than the trigonometry class that preceded it. Even today, I use trigonometry all the time almost without thinking, but I can't for the life of me remember how to long-divide polynomials (or picture a scenario where I'd need to). There's just so friggin much deeply abstract symbol manipulation in calculus class (which in school also covers essentially "advanced algebra"). It's a different ball game.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Long division of polynomials is literally exactly the same algorithm as long division of base-10 integers, except with no carrying.

Jach 8y ago

I got As in my pre-college math courses but I don't think I breezed through them. My schooling had no separate trig course, it went algebra, geometry, intermediate algebra, and calculus. Various pre- or honors versions. Since the BC exam covers quite a bit more material than the AB, my school teacher required those interested in it to take pre-calculus Honors first which was mostly about shoring up any gaps in previous studies while getting a foothold on Calculus AB material near the end. I think that extra prep made a huge difference in my performance, along with the teacher himself and an insistence on memorizing a lot of things to not be dependent on a rule sheet and getting an intuition for solving problems that even the TI-89 wouldn't help much with.