I apologize, I meant to say if she is able to recover to a B- and above from current C+ without leaving her too burnt out
This link is broken @ucbalumnus
https://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi works for me.
If not, a web search for āare you ready for calculusā should bring up several other quizzes and pages to check out.
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Just want to inform you about tutoring.
When I tutor my students, I spend a good amount of time observing them working so I can identify where their weaknesses are. We then spend time strengthen those weaknesses. This process does NOT lead to immediate improvement of performance. I have had several parents of former students told me that if I were paid tutor outside school instead of assigned tutor by the school during school time free of charge, they would have fired me after two weeks.
In the public school Iām teaching now, there is free tutoring on core subjects after school. From what Iāve heard my students say, most of the tutoring teachers help the students complete their homework and check to make sure itās mostly correct. But thereās no teaching happening. When a student doesnāt know how to proceed solving an equation, the tutoring teacher would give directions to the next three steps for the student to follow. The equation is solved, but the student hasnāt learned anything.
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If you canāt afford outside tutoring Iād also like to suggest you or your daughter look into whether her school has a peer tutoring club or program available, this would especially be helpful because itād be from kids who know the teacherās class and exam style and who still remember what helped them to learn and understand the content
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I agree that ānormalā tutoring or āfreeā school tutoring will not solve problem. You need good quality paid tutor (preferably with very stong math background, not just hungry for money person) who will pin point root cause of the issues and be able to plug holes. Solving for a child HW or guide her step by step is not a great solution 
.
I did it with my kid. It took a lot of time and efforts on my kid and my side.
Sometimes some math concepts should be explained 10 different ways before they make sence to a student. Only experienced professional can do it.
Also from my experience there are very few good Math teachers in HS, unless it is a magnet program. We had teachers who parroted text books with power points from Pearson, used other teachers tests and sometimes did not even understand concepts themselves unfortunately.
One of my daughtes was very frustrated and on several occasions said, āI wish you were teaching us in HSā¦ā. It was very frustrating to be a Math interpreter non-stop. It was easier to teach from scratchā¦ But as you can imagine I do not work as school teacher or paid tutor.
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Itās really a glaring omission that there is not a single source / book / online resource that is specifically tailored to students in this situation. Really an opportunity for someone to help a lot of students and make a good return on time.
Weāre very early in the year, so it is likely that some of the issues are with limits and continuity. This is material that is quite frankly different from most concepts taught in earlier years. So perhaps less surprising that a strong math student might struggle. Selective tutoring as to these concepts, a careful review of the AP classroom and sample problems in this area and possibly IXL (many schools offer free access) has many practice problems in this area.
If DD is strong in algebra, the initial units on differentiation should be quite easy - that part of intro calc is usually taught as a plug-and-play power rule, chain rule, product rule, quotient rule, etc.
Later on in the course, typical sticking points are factoring and trig functions / inverse trig functions. As I donāt think AB includes polar coordinates, the trig questions may be somewhat simpler, but techniques like a very good grasp of factoring quadratics and a very good grasp of trig identities as well as an understanding of the periodicity and meaning of inverse trig functions are helpful to success. Also as a one-off, Calc may be one of the first times, the relationship between the function (tan) and slope is highlighted.
Some earlier work to firm up these skills can make the course flow more smoothly.
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I am not sold on paid tutoring, I have heard a lot where lot of wise academician advise against parents helping kids with homework on advanced courses. There are subtle behavioral/psychological aspects of your child where you as parent understand which are otherwise ignored or not well understood by a paid tutor and they may be too quick to jump to a conclusion saying your child is not ready for such and such course bla bla.
I think regular course teacher have a big impact on students, depending on how they judge their teacher, they are either super motivated and they overcome a lot of hurdles and some time struggle with small stuff
She is not strong in Algebra due to the fact that she had undermined the complexity of multiple brackets, numerators-denominators, signs, powers all coming together and make use of all available space and patience to deal with complexity. She try to do multiple steps at once. She is good in understand what power rule, chains, quotient etc in general. She is confused why other kids think applications of Calculus is hard, so I tell her, everyoneās mind work differently 
Makes a lot of sense.
At least with my son, some error-prone sloppiness from skipping or combining steps in algebra may come from 1) a very good math intuition but rushing, 2) bad handwriting that has trouble keeping up with or keeping track of thoughts, 3) reluctance to write things out (my son) before getting to the āendā.
My son benefitted a lot from going from blank to wide ruled and then to college ruled paper where he had to write out steps.
A predictable obstacle would be that many paid tutors will recognize weakness in algebra and then quite possibly give you and DD a lecture about how algebra is fundamental to Calculus, how DD should drop the class and then refuse to help you because āshe is too young to take the class anywayā¦ developmentalā¦ acceleration badā¦ yaddaā. That could be demoralizing to DD, so Iād have a parent-to-tutor discussion that is quite specific as to this point before going too far. Weak or sloppy algebra is going to slow things down a lot. Itās the refusing to help you and DD with her goal that is the issueā¦ and the attitude.
Practically speaking, there should be a pause in difficulty coming soon as the class works through applying the concept of limits to the definition of a derivative (quite simple) and basic differentiation rules which are also pretty mindless. Using that time to firm up the algebra would be an option.
One thought is to have DD work through problems on IXL or otherwise involving systems of 3 equations and finding the solution. This is very algebra intensive, requires good, neat organization and it has a built-in checking mechanism so she will have instant feedback as to how often she is making errors. If DD knows how to solve these using matrices, that would not be as helpful.
Another exercise could be a page of factoring problems including some where āa does not equal 1ā as in 3x^2 + 16x + 16 = 0. You can find some of these where even when a is not equal to 1, the factoring still works out.
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Blockquote
Another exercise could be a page of factoring problems including some where āa does not equal 1ā as in 3x^2 + 16x + 16 = 0. You can find some of these where even when a is not equal to 1, the factoring still works out.
I am sorry, donāt follow this part. what does this has to do with āaā ?
quadratics can be seen as ax^2 + bx + c = 0 as with use of the quadratic formula. Students can get initially intimidated when āaā is not equal to 1. There are pretty cool youtube videos on how to work through factoring when a is not 1. Basically quadratics can be factored using 3 methods - straight factoring, completing the square and the quadratic formula.
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You are spot on, I think this is a level of abstraction that may come naturally to some. Please share a youtube link if you have it handy
Geeks!
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I wish all math teacher were like him, My D is really good in factoring, Now I know what āaā means in your message. The other day she had a literally ax^2+bx type situation, where it is hard to explain āaā is also a constant (donāt differentiate) that looks like a variable
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My D has been work hard and she has been able to keep B- in the course, I could see how she reinvented her self to do good in Calculus. She will understand all difficult theorms and stuff with super ease. she had a chapter test 3 weeks back, comes back home happy that she expects to score full marks. She was super happy. Yesterday came back with a shock that she scored 55/100, dropping her to a C. She was not allowed enough time to take a look at what she did wrong. I will go with her to school after thanksgiving break to see what really happened. I am really anxious, disappointed and broken heart. I feel for my daughter, she has been working really hard. @Gumbymom @tsbna44 @blossom and all others any suggestion. I am really nervous and loosing hope for her making top tier schools. Not that it is the end of the world but it is disappointing for a deserving child
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Top tier is in the eye of the beholder and everyone can make any school top tier. Both my kids chose safeties over top tier (or what they believe is).
So get that notion out if the head. Even with an A in Calc, they can be rejected at schoolsā¦.especially given that you said sheās not interested in extra curriculars. Academics alone make the cut at many schools but not typically high end schools.
Focus on the learning. Overcoming adversity is a great trait. Clearly she is struggling - whether itās too early, she needs tutoring or to repeat.
Life is a marathon. Keep the head down and focus. No matter the result, it will be easy to come back.
But math is foundational so b4 she can move on she needs to understand.
She, not her school name, will make her future.
So take the top tier pressure off. There are Ivy caliber kids likely on 150, 200 campuses.
Itās hard enough to think about math - no need to add college disappointment to the pie.
And as a 10th grader college is the last thing to think about !! Too much pressure. At 15, she should be a kid and be allowed to be a kid.
Sheās in a 12th grade class and that might be a part of the issue - simply not ready. And needs to retakeā¦did she take pre calc ? Maybe thatās a step missedā¦as math is foundational. It builds.
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I think your last point was suggested a few times up-thread and OP has pushed back against it. Reading this thread again it seems like the most likely reason to me though.
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The other thing is OP says the student understands but canāt do the work in time which means thereās either a donāt understand or other issue.
I laugh - my college gf was a vp at Fortune 500 companies since 28. Under 3.0 gpa. Psych major. Not a top school.
She, nothing else, made her mark. Dwarfs me income wise and I have an mba.
This student wants to be pre med. the school wonāt matter.
In 10th grade the student has a lot of time to regroup, catch up their knowledge.