Did not take pre-calculus (going into Calculus)

mockingbird7
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:02:48 +0000

A lot of pre-calc (at least at my school) was polar and parametric form of functions. This stuff is fairly straight foward and is only mentioned briefly in the Calc BC curriculum and I do not believe it is in AB. If you teacher decides to teach it, she will probaly have to review it for the whole class, and depending on your math skills that may be enough for you to learn that.

Another large portion was conics: hyperbolas, parabolas, ellipses, circles. You will not need this for Calculus at all.

The thing the most important that is taught in pre-calc is trigometry. If you want to skip it you will want to practice all the trig identities, not just sin is opp/hyp. For example sin^2 x +cos^2 x=1 or sin (x+y)=sin x cos y + cos x sin y. You will need these quite a bit for your study of calculus.

It is definitely do able to skip pre-calc depending on your math skills, but it may take a bit of work.