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AoPS or College Algebra/Trig?


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I'm looking for options for fall for my rising senior. If he goes dual enrollment he will be enrolled in College Algebra for the fall and Trig for the spring semesters. However, I have not been impressed with the quality of teachers our local university has hired due to the increased enrollment. So....I'm looking for options. Does AoPS have a course that would be equivalent to College Algebra? Or does the upper Singapore levels cover what would be covered in College Algebra? I know I could just get Lial's College Algebra, but I don't want to teach it, and, frankly, he probably doesn't want me to teach it to him, either :D. He has taken several concurrent classes at the local university this semester and is doing very well with just having me be "mom" at this time, but I may need to do it at home if I can't get a good professor recommendation locally. Other recommendations besides Singapore and AoPS (I've used both and they seem to click with the way I teach and the way the boys learn) are appreciated as well.

Edited by CynthiaOK
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Thanks, Kathy. Do you think that the Algebra 3 would be equivalent to a pre-calc class? My older boys have gone the dual enrollment route and have taken college algebra for 1 semester followed by trig for a semester. If I were to do this at home, it would be nice to get all the way through the trig component which would allow him to move directly into Calculus 1 at college.

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Thanks, Kathy. Do you think that the Algebra 3 would be equivalent to a pre-calc class? My older boys have gone the dual enrollment route and have taken college algebra for 1 semester followed by trig for a semester. If I were to do this at home, it would be nice to get all the way through the trig component which would allow him to move directly into Calculus 1 at college.

 

No, AoPS Intermediate Algebra is not sufficient for Precalculus - not enough trigonometry. You would have to cover at least the trigonometry portion of the precalculus book, because you must cover polar and spherical coordinates and the exponential form of the trig functions.

 

DD has done the following: she worked through chapters 1-16 of the Intermediate Algebra book in one semester, but omitted the last chapters which are more geared towards competition math (as explained in the foreword) . She is working through AoPS Precalculus during the 2nd semester and will cover chapters 1-11. Three dimensional matrices are not covered to this extent in a standard precalculus course.

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Thanks, Kathy. Do you think that the Algebra 3 would be equivalent to a pre-calc class? My older boys have gone the dual enrollment route and have taken college algebra for 1 semester followed by trig for a semester. If I were to do this at home, it would be nice to get all the way through the trig component which would allow him to move directly into Calculus 1 at college.

 

College algebra is in the Intermediate Alg text, and Trig is in the Precalculus text. But he doesn't have to complete those two volumes in their entirety in order to do precalculus. The material is wonderful and certainly worthwhile if you have the time, but it goes far beyond what we usually see in a precalc class.

 

With a good algebra 2 background, he could probably go quickly through the first 4 chapters of Int Alg, then move on to chapters 5 through 16. Then he could cover Chs 1 to 7 and 9 to 11 of Precalculus.

 

My 'bare bones' precalculus suggestion would be as follows: (This is for a kid who wants to cover what's usually done in precalculus in a text such as Foerster, but who wants an AoPS flavor & doesn't have two years to go through these volumes. Even so, this course outline would still be well beyond Foerster in depth and difficulty.) Do the exercises in each section and the Chapter Reviews. Starred problems and the end of chapter Challenging Problems could be sampled, but don't feel you have to do them all (it's not possible :)).

 

Intermediate algebra textbook:

Ch 1 - 4: review

Ch 5 - 6: all

Ch 7.1 - 7.5

Ch 9.1 - 9.2

Ch 10.1 - 10.5

Ch 11.3 -11.4

Ch 13.1 -13.3, 13.5-6

Ch 14.1

Ch 15.1 - 15.3

Ch 16.1 - 16.3

 

Precalculus textbook:

Ch 1 - 2

Ch 3.1 - 3.4

Ch 4 - 7

Ch 9 - 11

 

Anything extra beyond that would be icing on the cake (and the skipped sections are the ones I consider my favorites:), but I understand time constraints).

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My 'bare bones' precalculus suggestion would be as follows: [snip].

 

Just wanted to say that Kathy's suggestions for omitting material are pretty much identical to what we did with Intermediate Algebra and what we are currently doing with Precalculus. We based our decisions not on a comparison with traditional programs, just on the math we consider essential to succeed in calculus.

:)

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  • 2 years later...

 

No, AoPS Intermediate Algebra is not sufficient for Precalculus - not enough trigonometry. You would have to cover at least the trigonometry portion of the precalculus book, because you must cover polar and spherical coordinates and the exponential form of the trig functions.

 

DD has done the following: she worked through chapters 1-16 of the Intermediate Algebra book in one semester, but omitted the last chapters which are more geared towards competition math (as explained in the foreword) . She is working through AoPS Precalculus during the 2nd semester and will cover chapters 1-11. Three dimensional matrices are not covered to this extent in a standard precalculus course.

That is good to know. Thank you.

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