The survey first: "Even though 95 percent of the respondents agreed that calculus isn't necessary for all students, 74 percent put the College Board's Advanced Placement calculus course among the top four math courses that carry the most weight." But why? "The calculus track often serves to separate rich and poor students, sorting middle schoolers between an accelerated path to calculus and a slower path." Dough Holton adds, with a citation: "85% of calculus exam questions just involve rote memorization." Though I studied calculus, I managed to go through a long and productive research career without ever using it. I used a little trig, but not much. What really would have been useful would have been more work on matrices. But who could have predicted that in the 1970s?
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