C-/D+ in AP Calc

mikemac
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:58:18 +0000

The way the teacher teaches the material does not trigger my mind and it takes me several hours at home to understand the material completly.

The problem is you aren’t studying enough. I’m going to say “several hours” is 3 to 5. The rule of thumb for a college class, especially math or science, is 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in class. A college class meets 3x a week, so kids in college taking calculus are putting in 9 hours each week, many putting in more than that.

And if your class textbook isn’t cutting it for you in terms of learning then you need to find some other texts or online sites that explain it better. Just because your school passed out a certain book doesn’t mean its going to be the best one for YOU to learn the material. And as for the tests, after you understand the concepts in science or math you have to practice applying them. In this sense these classes are more like tennis or spanish than subjects like history or health; you need to spend time practicing until you can readily and easily get the right answer. This is the part a lot of students miss; they read a section in the book that describes, say, trigonometric substitutions, and it makes sense. They think they know it, particularly if they review it once or twice. Problem is you can’t actually APPLY the idea on a test without spending hours practicing it, any more than describing how to form the past tense of a verb lets you do it fluently in conversation.

Fortunately there are books out there, titled something like “Calculus Problem Solvers”, that have thousands of worked examples arranged by topic. You just flip to the chapter matching what you’re studying, cover up the answer, and try to solve it. Check your answer, read thru the solution if you got it wrong, and keep doing them until you can get them right. When you see a similar problem on your class test you’ll solve it just as readily. Spend 9-10 hours each week doing this and I guarantee you’ll be passing the tests.

One other thing – a lot of calculus builds on itself. If you don’t have a solid grasp of the earlier material, the later stuff can seem opaque. So you should really go back to the 1st chapter of your calculus book, find the corresponding section of the problem solver book, and start practicing. A few hours on each chapter and you’ll find the material makes sense and you can solve the problems.

I am not quite sure what to do… should I personally send a letter explaining the situation to my schools or should I ask my guidance counselor?

Save your time. How do you “explain” it? That you should have spent more time and you promise you’ll do better in the future? It’s not an explanation, it’s an excuse. That’s not going to be very compelling to adcoms who have your letter in one hand, and in the other transcripts from kids who already DID spend enough time on a difficult class and show every indication they’ll continue to do so in the future. What you should do is spend more time on this class and bring your grade up. You want something the adcoms will notice, bring your grade up to a B over the next 6 or 7 weeks and then have your counselor send a note to your schools advising them of your significant improvement. THAT’S something they’ll notice.