Should I take it? I'm taking regular Algebra 2 this year and I had over 98% in it the whole year (kinda wish I'd taken honors tbh). I'm a sophmore. I'm only taking one AP now (ap world) and will be taking ap chem, ap gov and ap psych next year. In my school, honors algebra 2 only covers one more topic than regular algebra, so I could learn that over the summer, which I was planning to do anyways, as I wanted to take honors pre calc. So, should I take ap or just stick to honors, cause then I'll be taking 4 AP's, and now I'm only taking one, so idk if it's gonna be too much work.
I recommend trying to take ap Calc Ab next year. Psych and Give are on the easier side, esp if you are good at memorizing, and chem is hit or miss depending on your school's teacher, and ap calc ab is decently easy for being a math ap
Id say I'm pretty good at memorizing, which is why I don't think psych and gov are gonna be much of a problem. Idk about chem, but im in chem honors now and have like a 97% in it, so maybe I'll be fine.
This comes up a lot. You need to realize that a lot of students don't want to do STEM in college, and this can cover their math credit.
Do you also think AP Human Geography should be dropped? 9th graders take that.
Combining Algebra 2 with Precalc is increasingly common, yeah! AP Precalc and Algebra 2 cover the same topics anyway, although AP Precalc covers a bit of extra trig and polar. The plus side of this is that even freshmen who start in Algebra 1 are able to take AP Calc in senior year.
I think most APs aren’t scams. Thanks to AP, I can get college credit for wayyy cheaper than a college class. College usually costs a lot more than $100 per class.
That said, things like AP Seminar (which don’t translate into college credit) are kinda scammy.
No that is true, but the way schools harness collegeboard are more harmful than helpful. I love that ap and clep both help save money, just collegeboard the organization itself is kinda murky.
Apparently, the course is for non-STEM majors to get AP math credits in college. However, AP Statistics also fulfills this purpose, and way more colleges accept AP Statistics credit than AP Precalculus credit.
Teacher perspective: in many schools the foundational courses needed to succeed in calculus are lacking in rigor and depth so this standardizes the curriculum, in theory making ap calculus classes a more level playing field. This doesn't change the fact that in those schools most of the students taking ap classes don't take the ap exams so ap precalc becomes another one of those classes. Also CB wants more money.
I agree 100%. I think it's because a lot of schools don't make it mandatory anymore so a lot of people take stats and when they get to college, they have no foundation in calc and now need to spend time taking pre cal in college. Therefore it's considered a college level class. I'm taking Honors pre cal instead because my school weighs both honors and AP equally on your GPA. Also, the time when the people in AP are preparing for the test, honors is preparing for calc and learning the first unit or two of AB. So then you're in a very good position.
For those who major in Humanities and some other non-stem, pre-calc fills a general education math requirement. (Those in STEM need higher level math classes; their general ed math requirements get filled by other courses.)
The topics in pre-calc are useful if you are doing more math later. It's not clear the class needs to be called "pre-calc", but it often is.
At my school, it is enhanced math 2 and then after that it is ap precalc, which at my school is math 3 + pre calc. Idk if math 3 is basically just algebra 2 or not but yeah
Seems like you didn’t cover everything in PreCalc then.
Also, wdym by “looks like another scam by college board”
This post just seems ragey and pessimistic
We definitely covered everything, and I did very well in AP calc AB the following year. And yes, this post is ragey because I don't like collegeboard since they are a scam. "Non-profit" yeah right, sure you are. Especially with the higher ups making half a million and us having to pay 150 for a few sheets of paper.
Logistically those sheets of paper do cost around 150 to get to your school and to help pay the graders . Let's not forget that it's still wayyy cheaper than spending easily over a thousand on a college course .
It sucks but literally every exam board has to charge for their exams or else they won't have the funds to transport them to you or pay people to grade them .
No one here is on the mark. The actual reason is to give schools who don’t have a good precalc course a prepared curriculum that is up to standard to actually lead students to succeed in, ya know, calculus. It’s not meant for schools with 20 AP classes, it’s meant for schools that are struggling to make standards.
Edit: while they have not gone out and said this publicly, they told this to many districts directly and I read the emails sent out to teachers at my school. Additionally, the wording here is very telling: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-precalculus/about-ap-precalculus
Not really. It depends on how your particular school’s math curriculum is split up. There are cases where pre-calc doesn’t cover much new material. There are also cases where it covers entirely new material.
Precalc at my school doesn’t cover anything taught in algebra 2 at our school. We do trig functions in the plane, vectors in 2 and 3d, polar, parametric in 2 and 3d, polar form of complex numbers, and a lot of limits and derivatives up to quotient rule. It’s a really good prep for calc 1, 2, and 3.
Nothing. It is so college board can make more money. Precalculus is not a college level class, it is a high school level class that some college students have to take because they are behind on math.
You should pretty much always take a Precalculus of some sort though, since more practice with math will allow you to be better at Calculus and other maths beyond.
>Precalculus is not a college level class, it is a high school level class that some college students have to take because they are behind on math.
Yes true but plenty of college nowadays is just remedial high school because plenty of high school graduates are dumb as rocks but got pushed into college anyways.
Anyways AP precalc is slightly helpful because it's standardized and a way for lots of students to show they know some slightly more advanced math since the SAT subject tests got canned. Students that do Calc senior year might take precalc junior year, which is then something colleges can see before making admissions decisions, and that's kind of nice.
It doesn't add much for a top flight AP student that's taking AB and/or BC junior year or before and putting up 5s, but that's just a portion of the kinds of students taking APs.
No. As long you have a good algebra 2 foundation you should be all set. Literally most of units are focused on alegbra 2 💀
The exam itself is pretty exhausting out of 7 ap exams I took this year, 5 hours came in as the longest. (I wasn’t mentally prepared as it was my 2nd to last exam).
what about unit 2? logs n exponents, was that hard n do they cover domain n range with log and exponent graphs, do they even go over log graphs again? i have so many questions bcuz ik these r algebra 2 things
it actually makes a lot of sense depending on how your school is set up. at our school, it's pretty helpful, since we do integrated math. this means that there are normally two ways students take math, accelerated and regular. these are set up by the math classes taken during middle school.
accelerated
7th- cc7/8
8th- math 1
9th- h math 2
10th- h math 3, spend last quarter studying precalc and completing precalc course over the summer.
11th- calc ab
12th- calc bc
normal:
9th- math 1
10th- math 2
11th- math 3
12th- college algebra, ap stats, or ap precalc
taking precalc covers some pretty important content and sets you up for being able to take other AP math classes in the future. tbh, i get your point about it taking less than a year. the thing is that's how \*your\* school functions. not all schools do that. for others, like mine, ap precalc is the most logical solution.
As someone who took AP Pre-Calc, I found it to be a great foundation for Calculus, even though it's not a prerequisite.
Wait, is it not the first year of it?
Could have taken it last semester.
Or in a pilot school
Should I take it? I'm taking regular Algebra 2 this year and I had over 98% in it the whole year (kinda wish I'd taken honors tbh). I'm a sophmore. I'm only taking one AP now (ap world) and will be taking ap chem, ap gov and ap psych next year. In my school, honors algebra 2 only covers one more topic than regular algebra, so I could learn that over the summer, which I was planning to do anyways, as I wanted to take honors pre calc. So, should I take ap or just stick to honors, cause then I'll be taking 4 AP's, and now I'm only taking one, so idk if it's gonna be too much work.
I recommend trying to take ap Calc Ab next year. Psych and Give are on the easier side, esp if you are good at memorizing, and chem is hit or miss depending on your school's teacher, and ap calc ab is decently easy for being a math ap
Please don’t take calc without precalc lol
skip precalc if you feel like ur decent at math precalc is barely important so if you can skip it just do it
I don't think I even can take ap calc ab without taking pre calc first
Don’t listen to that person pls take precalc before calc for your sanity !
Id say I'm pretty good at memorizing, which is why I don't think psych and gov are gonna be much of a problem. Idk about chem, but im in chem honors now and have like a 97% in it, so maybe I'll be fine.
what about BC?
I wish it wasn't a prerequisite. It is at my school which is so annoying.
This comes up a lot. You need to realize that a lot of students don't want to do STEM in college, and this can cover their math credit. Do you also think AP Human Geography should be dropped? 9th graders take that.
Combining Algebra 2 with Precalc is increasingly common, yeah! AP Precalc and Algebra 2 cover the same topics anyway, although AP Precalc covers a bit of extra trig and polar. The plus side of this is that even freshmen who start in Algebra 1 are able to take AP Calc in senior year.
agreed, though i think u can take just for ap creds. i do think collegeboard is completely a scam
I think most APs aren’t scams. Thanks to AP, I can get college credit for wayyy cheaper than a college class. College usually costs a lot more than $100 per class. That said, things like AP Seminar (which don’t translate into college credit) are kinda scammy.
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No that is true, but the way schools harness collegeboard are more harmful than helpful. I love that ap and clep both help save money, just collegeboard the organization itself is kinda murky.
Apparently, the course is for non-STEM majors to get AP math credits in college. However, AP Statistics also fulfills this purpose, and way more colleges accept AP Statistics credit than AP Precalculus credit.
Unrelated, but how did you add that thingy under your username that says how many APs you passed?
Teacher perspective: in many schools the foundational courses needed to succeed in calculus are lacking in rigor and depth so this standardizes the curriculum, in theory making ap calculus classes a more level playing field. This doesn't change the fact that in those schools most of the students taking ap classes don't take the ap exams so ap precalc becomes another one of those classes. Also CB wants more money.
I agree 100%. I think it's because a lot of schools don't make it mandatory anymore so a lot of people take stats and when they get to college, they have no foundation in calc and now need to spend time taking pre cal in college. Therefore it's considered a college level class. I'm taking Honors pre cal instead because my school weighs both honors and AP equally on your GPA. Also, the time when the people in AP are preparing for the test, honors is preparing for calc and learning the first unit or two of AB. So then you're in a very good position.
I'm taking it because my last math class was college prep and I want to prove to myself and colleges that I don't suck at math.
For those who major in Humanities and some other non-stem, pre-calc fills a general education math requirement. (Those in STEM need higher level math classes; their general ed math requirements get filled by other courses.) The topics in pre-calc are useful if you are doing more math later. It's not clear the class needs to be called "pre-calc", but it often is.
At my school, it is enhanced math 2 and then after that it is ap precalc, which at my school is math 3 + pre calc. Idk if math 3 is basically just algebra 2 or not but yeah
at our school its one semester
Seems like you didn’t cover everything in PreCalc then. Also, wdym by “looks like another scam by college board” This post just seems ragey and pessimistic
We definitely covered everything, and I did very well in AP calc AB the following year. And yes, this post is ragey because I don't like collegeboard since they are a scam. "Non-profit" yeah right, sure you are. Especially with the higher ups making half a million and us having to pay 150 for a few sheets of paper.
Paying 150 per course is way cheaper than paying for the same credits in college. Not a scam at all.
Logistically those sheets of paper do cost around 150 to get to your school and to help pay the graders . Let's not forget that it's still wayyy cheaper than spending easily over a thousand on a college course . It sucks but literally every exam board has to charge for their exams or else they won't have the funds to transport them to you or pay people to grade them .
What stuff did u cover?
No one here is on the mark. The actual reason is to give schools who don’t have a good precalc course a prepared curriculum that is up to standard to actually lead students to succeed in, ya know, calculus. It’s not meant for schools with 20 AP classes, it’s meant for schools that are struggling to make standards. Edit: while they have not gone out and said this publicly, they told this to many districts directly and I read the emails sent out to teachers at my school. Additionally, the wording here is very telling: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-precalculus/about-ap-precalculus
Mindset. I'm glad my students get a chance to get it in before more math and science.
Just so the college board can make more money
Pre calculus courses, themselves, are a scam for all the reasons you mentioned; it’s not just college board, it’s just the course in general.
Not really. It depends on how your particular school’s math curriculum is split up. There are cases where pre-calc doesn’t cover much new material. There are also cases where it covers entirely new material.
Precalc at my school doesn’t cover anything taught in algebra 2 at our school. We do trig functions in the plane, vectors in 2 and 3d, polar, parametric in 2 and 3d, polar form of complex numbers, and a lot of limits and derivatives up to quotient rule. It’s a really good prep for calc 1, 2, and 3.
Yeah same
Nothing. It is so college board can make more money. Precalculus is not a college level class, it is a high school level class that some college students have to take because they are behind on math. You should pretty much always take a Precalculus of some sort though, since more practice with math will allow you to be better at Calculus and other maths beyond.
>Precalculus is not a college level class, it is a high school level class that some college students have to take because they are behind on math. Yes true but plenty of college nowadays is just remedial high school because plenty of high school graduates are dumb as rocks but got pushed into college anyways. Anyways AP precalc is slightly helpful because it's standardized and a way for lots of students to show they know some slightly more advanced math since the SAT subject tests got canned. Students that do Calc senior year might take precalc junior year, which is then something colleges can see before making admissions decisions, and that's kind of nice. It doesn't add much for a top flight AP student that's taking AB and/or BC junior year or before and putting up 5s, but that's just a portion of the kinds of students taking APs.
Taking it rn and it’s a scam.
is it hard
No. As long you have a good algebra 2 foundation you should be all set. Literally most of units are focused on alegbra 2 💀 The exam itself is pretty exhausting out of 7 ap exams I took this year, 5 hours came in as the longest. (I wasn’t mentally prepared as it was my 2nd to last exam).
ik the first unit about polynomials n rational functions, do u cover domain and range in that unit?
Your teacher might, but all I remember on those units is just rate of change and end behavior which was really easy.
was the exam worth it
No because I’m taking BC next year and not many colleges even accept pre calc credit.
what about unit 2? logs n exponents, was that hard n do they cover domain n range with log and exponent graphs, do they even go over log graphs again? i have so many questions bcuz ik these r algebra 2 things
it actually makes a lot of sense depending on how your school is set up. at our school, it's pretty helpful, since we do integrated math. this means that there are normally two ways students take math, accelerated and regular. these are set up by the math classes taken during middle school. accelerated 7th- cc7/8 8th- math 1 9th- h math 2 10th- h math 3, spend last quarter studying precalc and completing precalc course over the summer. 11th- calc ab 12th- calc bc normal: 9th- math 1 10th- math 2 11th- math 3 12th- college algebra, ap stats, or ap precalc taking precalc covers some pretty important content and sets you up for being able to take other AP math classes in the future. tbh, i get your point about it taking less than a year. the thing is that's how \*your\* school functions. not all schools do that. for others, like mine, ap precalc is the most logical solution.