question about math classes after algebra II (high school)?

Question

if a sophomore is taking algebra II and the school doesn't require a pre-calc. class as a prerequisite, should they go ahead and sign up for AP calc. AB for junior year so that they'd be able to take calc. BC their senior year if they did well??

Answer 1

AP CALC BC just goes much faster than AP CALC AB. (ie, they cover ch 1-9 while ab covers ch 1-5 or whatever...) the ap tests at the end of the year are according to the chapters covered. I took geometry, alg 2, precalc/trig, and then AP CALC AB throughout highschool. I got A+ in the first three years and it wasnt a struggle at all, i was a star math studen and then ap calc ab got so much harder. i had a B in that class and i was trying sooo much more...its definitely a leap in difficulty, not just a step.


but then again, each school is a little different in their class categorization.

Answer 2

Normally, I would say yes, but it depends on your future plans.

Every single college engineering and college science course will require calculus so if you have it in high school then you have a leg up. Even if you have to take the course again then you have an advantage over most students. At my college the calculus course was meant to be hard; it designed to weed out the weak academic students.

However, before you take pre-calculus shouldn't you take Trigonometry, that's what I did before I took pre-calculus when I went through high school and that was the course I took after taking algebra II. In that case you should take Trig, Pre-Cal, then Calculus.

The more AP courses you take the better it looks on your transcript, even if you don't do as well in them. The fact that you attempted the AP course is what matters the most and if you only did B work then that would equate to B work in college. High School didn't prepare me well for college, I only took 3 AP courses and I didn't realize that those were like easy college courses.