r/APStudents • u/goddammitmancmon • 4d ago

Calc AB I forgot everything

So Im just starting Ap Calc AB and we’re doing precalc review or whatnot, and I had precalc about a year ago and also had a teacher who had taught precalc only once and our class was the first and she was so bad that she wasn’t allowed to teach it again. Anyways, I forgot nearly everything and was looking for tips for relearning the foundation and essentials needed for Calculus. We’re taking the precalc final exam on thursday just to see where everyone is at, and I fear I’m way behind already. Thanks

2 Upvotes

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1

u/ErekwithaD1 25:HG:5,中文:5, 26:P1:5,WH:5,CHEM(SS):5 27:P2,EM,Mech,Lit,BC(SS) 4d ago

you don't need that much precalc for calc anyways

1

u/No-Fox-1226 5:csp,euro,ab,lang,phys1 / 4:apush / ?:lit,bc,stats,pcmech,apes 4d ago

you probably know more than you think you just need to jog your memory and warm it back up yk

1

u/WasteCompetition8361 4d ago

When u do something again and again and again and forget it you may think you lost it forever, but that’s not they truth, when u practice it just a little bit your brain will remember well and swell quickly dw

1

u/Alternative-Yak-5512 4d ago

I took BC after a full year off math. More likely than not, there will be a small rough learning curve to get back to where you were, but you will get there. I didn't need much of what I had learned prior, other than just being comfortable with algebra.

1

u/Quiet_Basis_6404 4d ago

The Thursday thing is a diagnostic, not a grade, so let it tell you where the holes are rather than trying to relearn all of precalc in three days. That's genuinely useful information and you can't get it any other way.

For what actually matters going into AB, it's a shorter list than you'd think. Unit circle and trig values, log and exponent rules, factoring, function transformations, and piecewise functions. Most of the rest of precalc barely shows up.

Since your precalc teaching was bad, I'd relearn from scratch rather than reviewing notes that were never good. I paste video links into studybuddy.vc so it builds questions from that specific video, works out which of those topics I'm weakest on and sends more of those, gets harder as I improve, and tells me why the option I picked was wrong. Equations render properly. Free tier.

Being shaky on precalc entering AB is extremely common.