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Sunday, Apr 23, 2006

I thought that this deserved mention. All my life, I've been a reasonably good math student. In fact, I used to be kind of a freakin' genius at it. (I'd be overwhelmed by everyone asking for help, etc.) Last year in Pre-Calculus, however, was a torture test. Our teacher couldn't teach (everyone thought so), and the stuff we studied--it may has well have been written in Klingon.

This year, I'm having even more "fun" in AP Calculus. Integrals, limits, derivatives--the whole nine yards. Now, no offense meant to anyone who likes math--but this stuff seems so pointless to me! And everyone else! We waste all of our time doing hand-ins and studying for tests. But the difference between me and everyone else is, they all seem to have at least half a clue as to what's going on. I have NO idea! Well, let me clarify: differential calculus was okay, once I kind of figured it out. But this integral stuff--my god! I'm floundering in a swamp of washers and disks! (If you've taken calculus, you'll know what I mean!) And the BEST part is, in less than two weeks I get to take the AP exam--3 straight hours of busting my brains--half of it without a calculator!

Fear not, though--the exam doesn't affect my grade (not that there's that good a grade to be affected), I'm not majoring in math, and I've already been accepted to college--so I should just take it easy and do my best, right? Too bad it's going to make me feel like a total idiot anyway!

Comments

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You're not alone, my friend. I took AP Calculus back when I was a senior and I didn't know or understand what the heck I was doing. My teacher couldn't teach at all and I had to self-teach myself.

And now I'm a math teacher myself. Thank goodness I'm not teaching Calculus though.

Best of luck on the AP exam.
Posted Apr 23, 2006 11:08 pm PT
Look at it this way: every function demands an inverse. Addition requires subtraction; exponentials require logarithms; and derivatives require integrals.
Posted Apr 24, 2006 2:02 pm PT
Never took calculus. While I am good at math, and other subjects, I never liked it. So, I am in Math 4, a relatively easy class.
Posted Apr 25, 2006 8:21 pm PT
Eh, I was never good at ANY kind of math. It's kind of why I'm a Liberal Arts student. French major here! I didn't even make it past Algebra 2, and that wasn't even the AP Algebra 2 at that, even though all my other classes were AP. I had to take Geometry twice to even pass. THAT is how bad I am.
Posted May 5, 2006 5:16 am PT
I'm taking AP Calculus next year...*runs and ducks for cover*
Posted May 28, 2006 12:46 pm PT
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  • crazy_legs_1205
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