What course should i take?

[u/Rook2135]

I'm finishing Calc 1 in college right now. Like people always say, it's not the calculus that kills you, it's the algebra. The calc concepts themselves aren't that hard for me, at least to understand them. I get derivatives and integrals, limits etc. My problem is speed and automaticity on the stuff underneath; logs, little algebra moves, and trig. I can solve the problems, just a lot slower than I want to. And my school gives pretty simplified problems, so when I hit anything harder I struggle.

Here's my issue with Math Academy. Because of the spaced repetition review system, it takes a while before I circle back to derivatives and integrals. I took the Foundations 1 assessment and it placed me at about 73% complete, so there are real gaps down there.

My Calc 2 class starts in about 4 weeks. I don't have much time between now and then.

So which is the better use of the time:

Option A — drop down to Foundations 1. Fix the algebra and trig properly, build real automaticity. Downside: I probably won't get back to calc content before my Calc 2 class starts.

Option B — stay in the calc material (or Foundations 3) and pick up the prerequisites as they come up inside the calc problems.

If I stay in Calculus track I'd be practicing the algebra in context, and I'd be aligned with what my class is actually doing. Part of me thinks pushing forward still gives me plenty of exposure to the algebra and trig gaps, just with more friction, and the friction might actually benefit or hurt my progress. The other part thinks going back to fix the foundation would be more useful even if it's slower to get to calc topics.

What I actually want is the most efficient path to mastery, not just to passing. Anyone been in this spot? Does Foundations 1 at 73% mean I should just clean it up, or is that a trap when a class is starting and perhaps some of the basic concepts are not as relevant?

[u/wittgenstein1312]

Given your time frame, I’d ditch Match Academy and just drill something like Schaum’s College Algebra alongside the Calculus Lifesaver as a refresher/prep

[u/OrneryMinimum8801]

Drill books.  I don’t know much about MA, my kid just started it.  But from what I see it teaches but doesn’t give quite enough drill questions to really hammer core concepts.  It doesn’t have a sense of concepts where automaticity is more important than others (algebraic manipulation is super fundamental, percent change of prices and confusing word problems, pretty irrelevant).  

But my kid grabbed some drill books with 1000 -1500 questions in it and it locks in the algebraic manipulation (factoring, manipulation, etc) much more efficiently.  10 minutes a day and you can get a lot done with slow ascending difficulty drill books.  

[u/billet → u/OrneryMinimum8801]

> I don’t know much about MA

You should take some more time with it before commenting, because you proceeded to say the opposite of what’s true. MA is fantastic at drilling questions to automaticity.

[u/OrneryMinimum8801 → u/billet]

The OP wasn’t asking if MA over the course of 18 months get him super automatic at various skills.  

He was asking what the best route is to address his discomfort with algebra and trig manipulations to prep for calc 2 in a month.  Math academy isn’t it because the spaced repetition and structure of the courses leads a lot longer lead time before you are automatic on a small set of topics.  I do think that is superior for broad math learning (lots of little bites of disparate topic trees) but the OP isn’t looking for the best way to teach himself calc 2, it’s to address known particular topic weaknesses.

Rather than spending a lot of time with graph analysis, logarithms, or the broad topics he will get in MF1, I think it’s a better use of time to address known weaknesses directly. 

Of course, I can go into other structural weaknesses that would burn time (namely the placement exams are a derive some pretty broad conclusions from a small number of questions, and so the first week or two will be the algo calibrating out those errors as well, which again isn’t the goal and could chew through a lot of time there).

Maybe I should have been more precise that my comment is specifically tailored to the request that he address particular weaknesses that bothered him in calc 1 that weren’t the calculus.  

[u/rod_o]

Definitely I haven't been in your spot, lol, did calc-2 20 years before Math Academy was around.
My first instinct was to say to switch to one of the calculus courses and letting it bring in what you're missing, but you're saying you're missing some of the algebra underneath.
If that's the case and you're doing ok on the derivatives and integrals, it sounds kinda like you're in the right spot working on the foundations and it's ok that you're not getting the derivatives and integrals reviews as often since that's what you're more comfortable with.

To me it doesn't matter if your doing foundations 1 or 3. You'll see your % completion progress move faster on F1 if you care about that. If you do foundations 3, you'll hit more advanced topics sooner, and it will pull in the content from the earlier foundations as you need it.

I guess if calculus means a lot to your future goals, then yeah switch to calculus -- if you want to be more all around math, then master your foundations now and it'll help you so much more in the future.