Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources AoPS Intro to Geometry course review

What I meant was that I never saw anyone disclose age; DS didn't come under any pressure to do so, and I don't see that he would have done, even if he'd been more active. When I first heard about AoPS I assumed (as apparently many people do) that there'd be audio or video participation involved, and that, obviously, would reveal age clues. A typing interface does not in the same way. At the start of the class, I mailed the instructor about a couple of things, and mentioned DS's age in an "I hope this won't show but just in case it does" way, and got the response that I shouldn't worry provided he was up for it and "we have lots of younger students". I didn't clarify whether this meant "younger than your DS" or "younger than average to be learning the material" - I suspect the latter, but I saw everything that DS saw about the other students and I couldn't tell which ones might be his age or younger. Yours might not have come across this so much, being homeschooled, but DS finds it a bit tedious being known for being good at maths at school (though he sort of enjoys it too) so it was very welcome that he felt safe from that in AoPS. [Well, in practice, he was invisible so of course he was safe; but he also didn't see anything to suggest that he'd have attracted that kind of attention if he'd been more visible.]


Don't know so much about difficulty (though see the comments upthread quoted from WTM). I think the "x < y means course x contains material that is prerequisite for course y" partial order contains these and their consequences:

Forall n. Algebra n < Algebra n+1

Forall X. Introductory X < Intermediate X

(better put those in ;-)

I think probably

Forall X. Algebra 1 < Introductory X

for being able to handle basic algebra including quadratics, at least (this was certainly assumed in the geometry course).

Their material suggests:

Forall X. Algebra 3 < Intermediate X

but it's not clear to me whether this is really a question of prerequisites, or more a "mathematical sophistication required" thing. We have the Intermediate Algebra book which goes with their Algebra 3; I had in mind to ask on their classes forum whether there were specific chapters to revise, before signing DS up for Intermediate Number Theory (if he does want to do that later).

I have read that all three intros are incomparable wrt prerequisites, but geometry is harder than the others. I'm less sure that I've seen it from them in writing, but I think the same is true of Int C&P and Int NT. I'm less sure about the AMC8 courses; clearly they're at introductory level of difficulty, and I think they neither have nor are prerequisites within your course list. What I'm not sure of is whether there'd be anything to be gained from them if one already had a good understanding of the introductory courses' material.

The AMC8 ones, and Intro to Number Theory, have the advantage of being shorter than the other reasonable possibilities for a course to do before Intro to Geometry - that's probably an advantage for a toe-dipping! I think if I were you, I'd probably decide which AMC8 one would be more your DS's level, and offer him the choice of that or Intro NT.

I don't have experience, but I suspect that depends more on the individual's characteristics such as processing speed than on age, really. DS is a relatively slow processor, I think - I predict that would be his lowest WISC index by a fair way, if we had him tested - and I think I am too. I see (some, but reassuringly not all, even of the best) colleagues well able to learn in real time from seminars, something I still can't generally do! (I can get the gist, of course, from a competently given one, but if I want to fully grok what's going on I have to think about it alone later. It's rare that I can ask a penetrating question at the end of the seminar.) That said, pretty sure I personally would find a class in which there was a written record of everything the teacher said in front of me at all times much easier than an ordinary spoken one!