<p>Is anyone else having trouble with AP Calculus AB/BC? I am struggling bigtime in this subject. It looks really wierd for my progress report card to have all a’s and a “D” ! Calculus is really getting on my nerves. The teacher is just killing us with the Quiz and test questions. How are you guys doing in the subject, any advice on some studying techniques???</p>
<p>P.S. I am going to be majoring in engineering.
Im screwd!! :(</p>
<p>Chem is the killer for me. All A’s and one C, but I think I could pull a B by the end of the semester…</p>
<p>For calculus… take notes. Then take more notes. Then do more than the assigned homework so that you can get enough practice with the problems. If you’re struggling then you should be finding so extra work so that you can catch up, conceptually, then it’ll be easier once you do.</p>
<p>i have a B. but i literally dont try at all. i play with my phone in class (when we do busy work) but then when he lectures i play games (falldown, puzzlefrenzy,etc) on my ti-84. i turn in homework late and when i turn it in late its cuz my friend didnt do it so i cant copy off of him during 3rd period (i have it 4th period). teacher always tells me “_____ get out of the calc games!” its pretty funny at the end. i am suprised he hasnt confiscated my calc yet…but then how would i take the tests? i have to start trying…then again its senior year</p>
<p>ap phyiscs i am struggling…d…and i actually try in that class.</p>
<p>the who, that’s exactly what i do in stats. she gets so ****ed. “Since when is this period game time.” and i don’t even want to go into my computer class. I play internet games and come here the entire block. her remarks “the internet is not necessary” and “uh lets not go into games” but other kids get in more trouble for playing loud sound clips from cartoons and other things. you should have seen her face when this one kid whos failing the class played a I thought i saw a ■■■■■ cat"
ah good times</p>
<p>but anyway why dont you ask your teacher for extra help ??</p>
<p>yeah i do. but she’s never here in the morning. she has like 5 kids and lives 30minutes from school so she is out of control.</p>
<p>im thinking of staying in at lunch and stuff to do extra calculus work. I dont really know what will help though. I have it 3rd period and im sometimes studying in AP Civics and music. Im trying to at least get a “c”. You know for college and stuff. I dont think a “c” will lokk that bad in ap calculus.</p>
<p>Yeah math is not my subject. I have failed close to half the tests (Calc AB), but I got a 96 on the last one which was a huge surprise. I will end up with an 83/84 for the semester. I work average hard, but most kids have higher grades. It’s like a blow-off class for some people.</p>
<p>Why take the class if you knew it would be this hard for you? Believe me, a D looks very bad senior year! Colleges will think u just took the class b/c of AP Credit!!</p>
<p>I did not take the class to get ap credi and I hope they dont think I did. Believe it or not I am good at math and Im going into engineering thats why I want to go through ap calculus.</p>
<p>I’m in your same position! I’m usually an A student, haven’t been slacking off, but I got a C first quarter. Hoping to bring it up to at least a B for midyear reports!</p>
<p>If you need help on Calculus (or Physics for that matter), ask on here and I’d be more than willing to help you with a detailed explanantion… Even on a particular topic that you aren’t grasping.</p>
<p>i’m the same way…calculus bc is my worst grade. i have not done a math homework assignment in probably the last two years…so i’m pretty far behind. i realized too late that slacking off would screw me in the long wrong because math is soemthing you build on.</p>
<p>jumaadj, there are many problem-solver books you can get that have calculus problems with worked-out answers. The way to use these books isn’t to look up a problem similar to one on your homework and then figure out the solution, its to methodically work thru the book and cover up the answer; if you can’t get it right then look at their solution, and keep doing it until you can solve that class of problems correctly. </p>
<p>How much time are you spending outside of class doing calculus? In college a calculus class will meet 3x a week for 1 hour, and a standard expectation for a hard class like this is that you’ll spend 3 hours outside of class for every class hour. Your class is supposed to parallel a college class, so this means you should be spending at least 9 hours a week outside of class studying and doing homework.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you can’t get a good grade in calculus you might want to reconsider if engineering is going to be right for you. Engineering is heavily math intensive. EE, for example, is essentially 4 years of calculus and applied calculus. The stuff you do by soph and junior years makes those 1st year integrals and derivatives look like a walk in the park. I’m not saying this to scare you, just to be honest about whats in front of you if you pursue engineering.</p>
<p>I took AP Calc AB my junior year of high school. The class was mostly seniors (some of whom resented the juniors in the class) and the teacher’s English was difficult to understand and math had NEVER EVER been hard for me before but I struggled on the tests anyway. Everyone else seemed to think the tests were easy, but I was lost.</p>
<p>I studied on my own for the exam. I solved lots of problems from books and worked on putting together a good conceptual understanding of calc, and I managed to get a 5 on the exam, in fact, the only 5 in my class of 30 kids. </p>
<p>I’m now finishing up my 3rd semester at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA.</p>
<p>The moral of the story? Yes, Calculus is important. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it perfectly at first, though. The fact that you’re good at other types of math suggests that you’ll probably get comfortable with Calc eventually, but it could take a little while. </p>
<p>I don’t have any advice for what do to about the class now. Without being in your position it’s hard to know exactly what you should do to salvage your grade. </p>
<p>The one piece of advice I will give you is this: do not become afraid of math! Don’t let calculus own you. Don’t give up. Don’t believe for a minute that you will never understand it. Don’t believe that you can’t go to engineering school. Don’t believe that you MUST go to engineering school. Don’t believe that one high school class should decide your future profession. Don’t let this class convince you that you can’t do math.</p>
<p>I’m in almost the exact same situation. I love math and science but I’m usually a B+ student in Math. I’m taking Calc 1 this year (Junior year) but I’m really disappointed. I’ve been doing extra practice problems, reading more lecture notes, have about 5 different Calc textbooks/prep books, and still am doing worse than the majority of my class. I love Calculus but it’s so frustrating that I work so hard and am still struggling. I made a goal to never get a C in high school and now I have to get a 125/150 on my final test Wednesday to get a B in the class. I really want to be an engineer and was hoping I’d have a great jumpstart by taking it my Junior year. Now, I’m thinking that was a mistake because now colleges will see the C on my transcript instead of getting it after (if I would have taken Calc as a senior, they would have only seen one grade from Calc instead of 3). </p>
<p>I was thinking of retaking Calc 1 for winter quarter to show that I could get an A…Do you guys think this would be a good idea? Or should I just continue on to Calc 2? I feel like I understand the content and I have an A on quizzes but a C on tests 
</p>
<p>i have 4 A+'s and 1 A on my HS report card… and then a B for AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>gah! i shouldnt have taken the course! i already did Calc AB last year!</p>
<p>i know why i am getting b- in calc. its cuz its senior year and dont try anymore. at least i know that if i start trying i can improve my grade. going into computer science major.</p>
<p>I was doing horribly (C+ first term), but I worked really hard to understand it, getting a 91 on my last test. I know some will scoff at it because they are so good in Math, but it’s just not my area.</p>
<p>Now, English is a different story.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t judge engineering by how well you do in AP Calculus BC. I took it last year as a junior and got a 100 1st semester, 96 2nd semester, but I got a 3 on the AP test. Now, part of this is because only AB material was covered and I had to learn taylor polynomials, integral convergence on my own, but it also is an indicator that perhaps your teacher is simply challenging you to your fullest extent so that the AP test will not seem as bad. While your good grade may not look good on your transcript, it will definitely prepare you better for college Calculus.</p>
<p>I’m at the University of Cincinnati right now taking Calculus III this quarter (the final was today, wow, killer), and Calc IV in the winter quarter. I must say that there is very little from Ap Calc BC that you will need for Calc III at least at UC. We used derivatives for one topic (derivatives of 3d vectors), integrals for one topic (integral test of convergence for infinite series), and we completely reintroduced Taylor polynomials. Those were just three topics out of probably 20 that we covered in the last 10 weeks. For the most part, I found out that Calculus III rebuilds on more topics from advanced HS Algebra and precalculus rather than more AP Calculus BC topics. I’m not into Calc IV until January 3rd, but I must recommend that the original poster not fret too much about his or her bad grades. You may just have a very challenging teacher, which will make the AP test seem a lot easier. Or you may not understand this stuff the first time around, and don’t worry about it, because sometimes it’s worth it to retake Calculus I and II in a college lecture setting. A lot of my friends that just graduated from my calculus class are doing it, and they seem to be doing soo much better the second time around that I’m sure they will be ready for the next step.</p>
<p>So just because you didn’t breeze through the first half of AP Calculus doesn’t mean that you aren’t good at it, and that you aren’t cut out for engineering.</p>
<p>“perhaps your teacher is simply challenging you to your fullest extent so that the AP test will not seem as bad.”</p>
<p>I got a B for first quarter, but my teacher makes his tests really hard & takes points off for any little mistake. </p>
<p>I agree with the statement on the top fully. I recently got a Princeton Review book for the Calc BC test, and the problems I’ve been getting on tests are so much HARDER than the ones I see on the AP. </p>
<p>After December will be interesting… I’ll be the only one in my class who can’t even think of having senioritis & letting it take control, lol.</p>
<p>I believe that the score on the AP will count more for how much one truly learned the subject rather than a first quarter grade.</p>
<p>My advice to the one who started this thread (rather obvious, I know. :).) is to find your problems in the subject & work at them. Also don’t let this one class destroy your confidence in mathematics.</p>