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Off topic, but could you tell me what you don't like about the Glencoe text?

Thanks!

Thanks, everyone. This is really a helpful array of ideas.

Bostonian, John Chung's SATII math prep book is particularly helpful on the topics above. Many are not, but that one is. (It's also way beyond the usual coverage for SAT II prep books, just so that everyone knows that.)

It's procedure-heavy without much in the way of WHY or deductive reasoning and careful conceptual building, if that makes sense. DD has also found a hefty sprinkling of errors, including examples that are mis-printed or flatly INCOMPLETE-- cutting off at the bottom of the page so that only the first half of them are shown.

There's "this is what you do with problems that look like this"
and "this is what you do with problems that look like that instead."

But very little "this is the law of cosines, this is where it comes from, and here's what it applies to and why..."

I probably shouldn't compare to my high school experience, it was a bit patchy and usual. I moved cross country between my sophmore & junior year of H.S. And then decided to graduate a year early and go to university at 17. I remember more of the jokes my Algebra II teacher told in class than what actual material was covered. But since I have a Math BA I must have learned something. I then didn't take BC Calc because I went straight to university. And once I got there managed to test straight into the second quarter of College Calculus. It's still possible I missed a few topics.

I'm having my DD run through the math placement practice tool at the uni that she's going to be attending in the fall.

As long as she places into Calc 251, we don't really care HOW she does it, I think.

Obviously, we'll confirm, but this class is a mess, and in terms of high school rank, it can only harm her weighted GPA... and she certainly doesn't need the credits to graduate, since she's already WAY over the number of Carnegie units that she needs as of the end of LAST term, and is a full year over the math requirements too.

So we're looking at either dropping it entirely for independent study (which DD would like to do-- she's interested in LEARNING the material, but the course is a mess and it's serving as more of an unwelcome distraction and perfectionism trigger than anything else right now), or barring that, seeing if she can get a seat in the local JC's MTH112, or EPGY.

Yes, it'll cost us more $$ to do that, but at this point I simply do not care.

I'll be teaching precalc to DS13 over the summer to compensate for the class he's taking now. His teacher returned after being out for 6 weeks on Monday and was out again on Tuesday. Don't think I lack sympathy for his teacher; I'm frustrated with the subs. As I reported on another thread, they're nothing but babysitters. No teaching occurs when the regular teacher isn't there.

He is forbidden from taking calculus at the high school next year (I told him he can take AP Statistics instead). He's not happy about this idea, but I told him it's too bad. He can take it at the community college in 2015.

Okay, well, she scored a handy 37/40 on the practice placement test, and anything over a 33 is theoretically placement into differential calculus.

So now, we decide whether it might be worth it to have her do independent study and take the SAT II as backup.

We always kind of count on needing ADDITIONAL documentation because of her age. Not fair, but there it is.

So simply placing that well probably isn't enough. Not sure what else we can try, though-- local CC has no seats for MTH 112. Leaving EPGY. Which is again self-paced, and not interactive with a teacher... which has been the problem thus far this year in math to begin with.

Grr.

kcab, this is the same reason that WE forbade DD from taking calculus.

This was confirmed last night by DD's friend/boyfriend/whatever-he-is... who IS taking calculus (but hasn't taken precalc, and therefore she knew a lot more than he did about the polar coordinate plane and trig identities). Same "teacher" for all three classes-- AP stats, AP calc, and Precalc.

NO teaching for any of them, and really inadequate lesson support. Both of them are feeling it.




Has anyone here got direct experience with EPGY precalc?

Remind me, HK, was there a reason your DD didn't want to do AOPS? Their next precalculus starts April 15th, fwiw - an option would be to get the book and self study, then use the class for challenge and interaction?

It's more about the accreditation than anything else. Honestly, I'm looking for the lowest stress method for her to get adequate documentation to allow for placement into differential calculus next fall.

Trig is the pre-req, and while she scores well enough on placement tests that they should permit it (and I know it would be fine) they might not permit it based upon her AGE.

KWIM?