daijobu
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Posts posted by daijobu
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9 hours ago, Malam said:
AoPS Precalculus (and many other honors precalculus classes) are more rigorous than AP precalculus despite not requiring any APs
Yes, I totally agree, and I haven't even looked at the AP precalc curriculum, lol. Same for AoPS vs. standard AP calculus.
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18 hours ago, Farrar said:
I would not be so sure about their placement rates in top schools. I'm just throwing that out there. Some of this is definitely that top level admissions has gotten unbelievably cutthroat. But some of it seems to be that they are not a name with as much cache in college admissions as many homeschoolers seem to think.
Thanks for bringing this up @Farrar, as this has been our experience with OHS. In my dd's senior year, the only full time students OHS placed at Stanford were 2 recruited athletes, and my dd who was only part time. That was it. My takeaway is that full time OHS students are at a disadvantage for competitive college admissions, and I routinely recommend parents enroll there part time only.
I also agree with @Roadrunner, that OHS was a godsend for us for the coursework they provided was unavailable anywhere else. Ironically we were specifically looking for a high quality AP biology course. It's sad if they are no longer offering it because it was truly a gem.
I'm skeptical of courses that claim to be more rigorous than an AP class. I'm sure they exist, and I'll believe it when an AP class is a prerequisite.
I'm also generally skeptical of the quality of CC classes based on what I read here and on other online forums.
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So, a number of schools are not participating in MathCounts. If your student is homeschooled, that won't affect you because you are supposed to form a homeschool team.
If your student will be enrolled in a school that as a policy will not have a MathCounts team, then your student can compete as a non-student competitor. It's more expensive (and risky) this way, so make a little effort to convince them to form one (or go rogue and form a MathCounts team representing your school with some other willing families).
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I should add that my daughter is long out of college now, so I don't even know if PAH has the same teacher, or if anything has changed. I have however heard great things about Blue Tent.
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When you are accustomed to the rigor and proofs and general depth of AoPS it's hard to come back from that. Still, while many students take AoPS calculus, do some prep in the month before the exam, and earn a 5, we just didn't want to deal with the onerous homework and real analysis required to complete the course. Calculus isn't really all that hard once you wrap your mind about what it means to be infinitely large or small. Earning a 5 in AP calc is kind of a binary thing, and we didn't want to work extra hard to achieve that. She had a busy junior year anyway.
She wanted a get-er-done, earn-a-5 AP calculus class and PAH fit the bill perfectly for that. But that doesn't stop her from complaining!
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Thanks for this update! We did a bit of pre AoPS class prepping as well for their python classes. I basically had my daughter learn most of the python at home independently, then she turned around the took the AoPS python classes.
You are right, once you start with AoPS it's hard to go back. We used it all the way until the derivatives chapter of calculus then switched to AP calculus at PAH to save time and ensure she earned a 5. My "always AoPS" daughter complained a fair bit about the new class and teacher, but it did get the job done.
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9 hours ago, SFisher said:
What would you suggest leading up to math counts?
MOEMS is a great start. When that's no longer challenging you can find old MathCounts test papers at this website: http://mathteamnyc.weebly.com/mathcounts.html
You'll want to start with the "School" level, which is the easiest, then Chapter which is the first level competition round. You can also try old AMC 8s, which are also freely available at the AoPS website: https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/AMC_8_Problems_and_Solutions AMC 8 is about the same difficulty as Chapter level MathCounts.
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I generally like the Tests and the Rest podcast for information about college admissions.
This recent episode is specifically about preparing for the digital SAT: https://gettestbright.com/resources-for-the-digital-sat/
What materials do you recommend that your students use for the Digital SAT?
When and how should you use the official Blue Book practice tests?
What have your students tried already and what did they think?
Should you trust 3rd party scoring algorithms?
What are the best free materials to use?-
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On 3/4/2024 at 1:41 PM, Nart said:
Is there a workbook or worksheet with an answer key that has worked out problems to review for Calculus? Or something online that would be good to review and has practice problems?
If you complete the College Board audit (very easy, just select one of their sample syllabi), you will have access to their Question Bank where you can filter by problem type to create PDF worksheets and solutions. It's a great resource for AP calculus specifically, but also calculus generally.
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On 3/8/2024 at 6:50 AM, WhitneyS said:
After much research, my daughter and I chose Apologia last year. I loved the idea of hands on projects each lesson and my daughter was excited to try it. After using it, it isn’t a great fit. My daughter hates the hands on projects, I’ve had to supplement math fact drills as she was struggling with previously memorized facts and yesterday she told me she would really like a program with more review, as she feels like she’s forgetting how to do things.
I'm wondering what you mean by "hands-on"? Sometimes there's no substitute for pencil and paper practice with worksheets. She might forget less if she solves more practice problems, i.e., more "hands on."
Singapore Math is also a solid option for elementary.
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5 hours ago, EKS said:
We desperately need a college admissions exam that has a much higher ceiling. I suspect that this new digital SAT is not it.
This role is being played by AP exams and specialized contests like AMC and USACO.
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15 hours ago, frogger said:
Making a few mistakes at the begining of the test causing the second half of your test to get fewer points seems cruel, unless it requires you to simply do so badly you aren't competitive to begin with.
I agree. If you could detect the second half problems are too easy, it would be so demoralizing to know that you are going to get a low score. Why continue?
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4 hours ago, SFisher said:
His school doesn’t have MOEMS. How could he still do this? Could he find another school nearby and go to competitions?
He probably can't participate with a different school, and it probably isn't worth the effort anyway. You will likely have better success convincing your own school to host it next year. Bookmark this URL and check it over the summer for when registration goes live. https://moems.org/online-register/ I can't find the current team registration fee, but it's in the ball park of around $100 per team per school.
You can also read more about it here: https://moems.org/general/
In the meantime, your student does not need to wait to gain problem solving experience. You can purchase this book: https://www.amazon.com/Contest-Problems-Division-Richard-Kalman/dp/1882144120/ of old contest problems that provides excellent practice.
Start with the contests in Level E (for elementary). When your student is routinely earning 4-5 problems correct on each contest, level up to M (for middle school level).
After that you can post here or DM me for more challenging problems. If you are unable to officially participate in MOEMS next year, I would nonetheless work through the problems in the book until your student has mastered them. Good luck!
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I actually only use Desmos for graphing functions. When I try to enter in an equation, it doesn't really work. Where are you entering equations?
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MOEMS is a good place to start at this age; if your school hosts it you can begin next school year in November.
Also too late for this year, but the annual Math Kangaroo contest is held next month. (Registration deadline was last December.)
MathCounts is a middle school contest, but he can start preparing now. Check your local middle school to see if they have a team.
I have samples of all of these contest papers and more, DM me if you'd like copies.
If he enjoys contests then you can generally find test papers online or purchase books at low cost for him to do for fun and practice now.
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On 2/13/2024 at 10:07 AM, shawthorne44 said:
I definitely want her to stay with the AOPS online classes. Although, as a break I might have her do the Number Theory book on her own,
I felt like the AoPS NT textbook was the weakest of the bunch. There are a lot of tedious calculations in the first half. The second half about modular arithmetic is excellent, but unfortunately it stops just short of Chinese Remainder Theorem. I suspect the online Intro NT class might be a better option.
7 hours ago, SanDiegoMom said:Then he found that often times it took a LOT to have the question be useful - the answer always started out very cryptic and “leading”, and he had to engage over multiple back and forths before he got any useful help.
I've seen AoPS discussions threads that devolve into a poop-show of multiple students asking their individual questions and responses from multiple TAs all together in one confusing thread. I've seen TA's mix up their variables, leading to still more confusion. Students post their partial solutions which remain until someone thinks to redact it. It isn't an ideal format for helping students.
I'm not surprised to find students are reluctant to join the fray.
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I googled "free printable linear equations worksheets" and got a lot of resources like this one: https://www.homeschoolmath.net/worksheets/linear_equations.php
You can scan the search results and find appropriate practice worksheets for your student.
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I just finished a book about the transition from polytheism to Christianity in the Roman empire, The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey. It really helped me understand all the varied religious cults.
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I forgot to include this link: https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/digital-portfolios/submit-ap-csp-work
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I don't think anyone here is suggesting you are rushing your student's academics. My own kids took AP CS A in 8th grade, and they didn't even really like computer science. I routinely advise homeschooling parents to take AP CS A as their first AP exam because it's really easy.
I want to alert you to a unique aspect of APCSP which has tripped up some homeschooling parents in the past. Your student will need to upload their "AP digital portfolio" somehow. I don't know the details, nor do I know what this portfolio is, but I've heard parents complain on other lists of their difficulty in locating a school that will allow them to complete this process. You'll want to ensure your student can complete this unusual time-consuming step.
Instead, you might encourage your son into joining your local CS team. The US has USACO and I think some other countries have teams as well.
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5 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:
History being interesting was one of the shockers of post-college life. Test or no test, it is like it is generally deliberately taught to remove all interest. Which when you think on it should be hard to do since history is really the interesting, important bits of Life in the past.
I've considered this myself, but I don't know if these boring survey-type courses are truly skippable, in favor of fun courses, including history. I think it's helpful to have a scaffold on which to hang more interesting material. If you want to read a fun history like Master Slave Husband Wife, it really helps to have at least been introduced to the Civil War generally.
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For a kid who is already studying python I would skip AP CS principles. It will be way too easy for him, won't add much to his programming experience, and I've heard weird things about earning credit for the exam, like you have to some place to upload your projects? I would skip it.
Yes, Java kinda sucks for students who love python, but learning Java after python will be pretty easy and he'll grab an easy 4-5 (probably a 5) on AP CS A exam, and it will be more meaningful.
TL;DR
Skip AP CS principles, and take AP CS A instead.
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On 12/27/2023 at 7:08 AM, shawthorne44 said:
Even experienced teachers get behind, and that is why I really don't have a problem with standardized testing. They may be teaching to the test, but at least they are teaching something more than their pet topics.
In Texas History, the teacher spent 3 months on the conquistadors, 3 weeks on just the Alamo, including a week of watching the old movie, and 3 DAYS on the Civil War.
OMG, same, and thank you for posting.
My high school also lacked an APUSH class, and the history department there decided that each teacher would focus on particular topics in US history, rather than the traditional survey course because, I don't know, depth? This despite the fact that we student had never had a US history class ever.
So in my particular class we were all in on the revolutionary war and the civil war. So much civil war. And nothing about the great depression, wwi and wwii, and any other war or any other era. I learned all that after college.
This is a reminder to me of another reason to defend the College Board.
And if I may segue a bit, I find myself harboring some amount of skepticism about some abandonment of survey courses in high school in favor of the more fun/interesting advanced classes. I hear about students who jump into classes like marine biology, and I suppose many of them have already taken regular biology, but at less privileged schools, I wonder if they are skipping regular boring prereq coursework. The goal is to keep students' interest in school generally, and to make it appear they are advanced when they are really getting a watered down version of an advanced course.
Is this a thing or is it just me?
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Yes, you need to sign up at the site. The sites sign up with the AMC to purchase exams in bundles of 10 or 12. I have no idea if you are "good to go." You'll need to confirm with the site where you registered. Ask if you need to provide ID, pencils, or anything else or if you need to arrive early. It's all up to them.
MCT Language Arts and online g3
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I don't think paying for an online class is necessary if you have reasonably good grammar skills, or can learn as you go.