I majored in math and had pretty good ACT and SAT scores but I still find Calculus and related math very difficult.
My unscientific observation is that some people find the analytical/continuous parts of math difficult but can still do really well with stuff like abstract algebra, combinatorics, linear algebra, and so forth. Other people (i.e. physics & engineering majors) are the exact opposite.
Then of course there are a select few who are good at both.
My brother is a math teacher and was more of a physics guy and his claim is that people who struggle with calc generally had poor instruction in trigonometry in their youth. I'm not sure how true this could be but I definitely hated my trig instructor the most out of any teacher I've ever had.
My unscientific observation is that some people find the analytical/continuous parts of math difficult but can still do really well with stuff like abstract algebra, combinatorics, linear algebra, and so forth. Other people (i.e. physics & engineering majors) are the exact opposite.
Then of course there are a select few who are good at both.
My brother is a math teacher and was more of a physics guy and his claim is that people who struggle with calc generally had poor instruction in trigonometry in their youth. I'm not sure how true this could be but I definitely hated my trig instructor the most out of any teacher I've ever had.