Algebra II

Algebra II picks up exactly where Algebra I leaves off, and the jump is real: instead of lines, the course spends its opening stretch on quadratics — solving them by factoring, completing the square, and the quadratic formula, then graphing them as parabolas and reading off the vertex, axis of symmetry, and roots. From there it moves into polynomials of higher degree, rational expressions, and then two topics that typically feel genuinely new rather than an extension of what came before: exponential functions (growth and decay) and logarithms, which many students meet for the first time as "the inverse of an exponent" and need a session or two just to get comfortable with the notation before the algebra makes sense.

That structure — quadratics, then polynomials, then exponentials and logs — means gaps compound if the foundation from Algebra I wasn't solid, particularly around factoring and manipulating expressions with a variable in the exponent. A tutor working with a student on Algebra II often spends the first session or two figuring out whether a stuck point is really an Algebra II concept, or an Algebra I gap (weak factoring, sign errors, fraction handling) resurfacing under harder material.

Complex numbers show up too, usually introduced when a quadratic doesn't factor over the reals — a genuinely new number system for most students, and one that benefits from being explained conceptually rather than as a rule to memorize. Sessions can move at whatever pace matches the actual course a student is taking, whether that's building steadily toward a final exam or targeting one unit, like logarithms, that's causing trouble right now.