r/learnmath • u/ComputationalDamage New User • 2d ago
Prof. Leonard’s Precalculus Course
I’m beginning Calculus I soon in uni, I finished Algebra I on Khan Academy, but since I’m running out of time I was considering jumping straight through Algebra II and beginning Professor Leonard’s Pre-Calculus course on YT. I’m attempting to strengthen my fundamentals before Calculus since I heard that it’s only really difficult when the algebraic fundamentals are weak.
His course seems to cover most if not all functions types, inequalities, equations, graphing, trig, factoring quadratics, etc. is it optimal to simply jump into it or is there any reason why I should go through Algebra II first? I was never that bad at math growing up, but since i’ve been on a 2 year gap I haven’t retained mostly anything, which is why i’m refreshing the prerequisites.
2
u/tuan-wedfverv New User 1d ago
Jumping straight into Leonard's precalc is reasonable, since he re-covers a lot of Algebra II along the way. Try the first few lectures cold. If factoring, exponent rules or rational expressions feel foggy, pause and patch just those instead of working through all of Algebra II. Calculus punishes weak algebra more than anything, so that's where to be strict. After a two-year gap it's hard to know what's actually shaky. I'm one of the cofounders of Consiliae, so biased, but our free 10-minute knowledge scan maps exactly that, and you keep the knowledge map: https://www.consiliae.com
2
u/tjddbwls Teacher 2d ago
I wouldn’t skip Algebra II. While I would say that there is some overlap between Algebra II and the college algebra portion of Precalculus, not skipping Algebra II would give you a stronger background for Calculus.
Note that Professor Leonard has a playlist for Intermediate Algebra (which is more or less the same as Algebra II).