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What? 8th grade and students won't take calculus?

In Singapore, the default stream sees students taking basic algebra at age 11 (5th grade), simultaneous and quadratic equations at age 14 (8th grade), and single-variable calculus at age 16 (10th grade). By 17-18 (11-12th grades), students have done first-order ordinary differential equations, volumes of revolution, functions, vectors, and students have the option to take college-level linear algebra or discrete mathematics.

What is wrong with the US?



The US is the same it’s just spread out and named differently.

“Basic Algebra” is what we call 7th-8th grade (age 11-13) math.

“Simultaneous and quadratic equations” is what we call Algebra which is 9th grade (age 14-15) with logs and exponentials thrown in.

Most places do a split year of Geometry and Trig in 10th grade.

Single variable calculus and first order blah blah is Calc 1 for 11th graders.

Volumes, vectors, integrals, infinite series, taylor expansions is Calc 2 for 12th graders.


Nothing? I took all those classes around the same age in a public school in the midwestern United States. I didn't turn 16 until my 11th year of school so maybe there's just a difference in the way grades are numbered. (I was a little young for my grade.)


My friend moved from Taiwan to the US in 7th grade, and she felt the same way. She was totally bored, but enjoyed suddenly becoming the smartest kid in her math class. She was, at best, an average student in Taiwan.


It's the same with the standard school syllabus in my corner of dusty Africa.

> What is wrong with the US?

For a developed country, they can be frustratingly archaic.


We don’t have a homogenous population of Asians, that’s why. I was an Asian in American public school and was 2 years behind what you described, and that was going as fast as possible within the system.


I don't think being 'Asian' has anything to do with it (for the record, 'Asia' is a continent stretching from Yemen to Japan). In this very thread there are people talking about professors of German and Eastern European origin complaining about the standards of their students.




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