Yes, very true for DD, and one reason she sees herself as bad at math.
She recently participated in a math olympiad-type contest (her class was required to) and scored just okay--pretty good, but I don't see great math talent from the score.
I'd be careful about making a judgment about talent based on a score in a single competition or on your DD's problems with Common Course course 3. Given the education your DD is getting (and no extra tutoring, right?), even a pretty-good Math Olympiad score is very good, given that the MO tests actual math skills, whereas that CC book is a dog's dinner of mashed up concepts. The course can't be far behind, given that it has to go through all the material in that horrible book.
I bought a copy of the course 3 book, and it's not much different from the other disasters that Pearson has given us in the last 10 or 15 years. It's all mixed up and out of order. Chapter 3 is about graphing equations and interpreting the graphs. Chapter 4 goes backwards to basic information about what it means to graph an equation.
Chapters 1-4 have lots of stuff about squares, cube roots, and quadratic equations. Chapter 6 takes us back to the very most basic ideas about exponents.
No, I am not making this up.I'll repeat my advice from before: get your daughter into a program like the Mathnasium. They have their own mathematically correct curriculum, progress logically, and don't give homework (well, Mathnasium doesn't). If this isn't an option, I'd recommend an old pre-algebra book or the Brown
Algebra 1 book. Teach her yourself with the help of a
teacher's edition. As I mentioned, I did this with my son, and his relief at being freed from the pit of confusion was palpable.
Personally, I don't see much point in aiming for a Calc BC course if the student is going to struggle through badly designed Common Core courses to get there. It just doesn't make sense, and the students are honestly probably not learning much in a meaningful way.
But most importantly, don't let Pearson and the Common Core's poorly thought-out middle school math standards convince your daughter that she's "bad at math." Pearson and the middle school standards are the ones that are bad.
