<p>Is there anyone who got 5 on AP Calculus? Would you mind sharing some good prep books you used to get 5 on the test and strategy you used? Any comment will be helpful. How was the work load? I know it depends on individual, but I would like to get some ideas.</p>
<p>I'll say outright that I honestly suck at math. At least at understanding the actual concept and theory behind it. This past year, I've gotten more Ds on calc tests than I can remember (got an A in the class though), though we did have three tests a week the entire year (what can I say, my teacher is a test nazi, whose goal in life is to win the AP Calculus World Championship, which I think is determined by a ratio of number of students and passing scores).</p>
<p>However, getting to the point (sorry about the schpiel above), I did get a 5 on the AP Calc AB exam. This is a result of:
-practicing virtually every past AP Calc AB exam (a database of all previous exams can be bought on CB's online store) -- you can be assured that you will encounter nearly any type of problem that they can test you on by going through 20 years worth of exams.
-Sparknotes Calculus flashcards (very useful for memorizing and applying theorems, general practice problems)
-Princeton Review (I personally thought the explanations were a bit vague, but the practice tests are useful)
-Barrons (more in depth than PR)</p>
<p>Good luck next year!</p>
<p>Well, my situation is not characteristic of most in this country, but I'll answer.</p>
<p>
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Is there anyone who got 5 on AP Calculus?
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Hi.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Would you mind sharing some good prep books you used to get 5 on the test and strategy you used?
[/quote]
Teacher gave us a Prep book with all the FRQ's in the past 10 years, along with a couple of previously administered MC's. </p>
<p>For all AP exams last year, I didn't use prep books; the teachers prepared us well, and (I think this is very important) I went on Collegeboard and downloaded a lot of previously administered FRQ's to get a feel for what the questions are.</p>
<p>For calc AB, the stuff CB tests on the FR is basically the same each year. 2007 was a little different but the curve was more generous I think. </p>
<p>
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How was the work load?
[/quote]
I rarely got to Calc homework; Calc was generally the last thing on my list each night, but that's because the teacher gave us class time to work and I often finished enough in class to sorta get the feel of the stuff. The concepts aren't that difficult.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>
[quote]
teacher gave us a Prep book with all the FRQ's in the past 10 years, along with a couple of previously administered MC's.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Isn't this illegal? My Physics C teacher gave one to me 2 years ago, but he told me not to tell anyone because it was illegal.</p>
<p>I got a 5 on the BC Calc test 2 years ago, and my main method of study was to review problems and solutions on AP Central. Unfortunately, I don't think this is possible anymore; the solutions part, anyway. Both tests are very very predictable, particularly the free response questions (for BC, the 1st question is almost always the same format; there will always be a rather simply differential equations and Taylor Series problem as well; I believe there is also always a series problem where you will have to find the interval of convergence). Look through past tests, answer all questions, and review review review. If you do that, it is very easy to get a 5.</p>
<p>The problem with many AP courses is that they don't have a review at the end, and don't finish the material until the end of the class, which means procrastination is necessary. If you have a good teacher, he/she will understand that review is needed. My Calc BC cracked his noggin in March so class was cancelled for a week, and we still had 2 weeks to review.</p>
<p>
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Isn't this illegal? My Physics C teacher gave one to me 2 years ago, but he told me not to tell anyone because it was illegal.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They're posted on the CB site anyway. I think it's perfectly legal.</p>
<p>Yeah, previous MC tests are released every 5 years or so I think.</p>
<p>I got a 4 on BC, but a 5 on AB subscore. I basically did the homework all the time, and studdied for a few hours before the test. If you like, you can pm me for more info.</p>
<p>Copies of old tests are allowed to be distributed for face-to-face teaching purposes (meaning that in theory on-line courses shouldn't be distributed). I think distributing the books themselves, however, may not be legal.</p>
<p>To the OP, I would suggest that you plan on spending approximately 4-6 weeks reviewing for the test. Your better teachers will do this with you (or will have in some way reviewed along the way), but a lot of teachers don't, so you may have to do this independently.</p>
<p>My biggest suggestion is to make sure you prepare using the 2007 test. In my experience with the course, the AP folks usually send out a "message test" to indicate a slight change of direction within the course, and I think the 2007 test was just such a test.</p>
<p>The last message test that I saw was in 2003. Many folks now will tell you that it's one of the easiest tests out there, but most people don't know that less than 20% actually got a 5 on that particular test. Then, with the exception of the addition of slope fields, the 2004, 2005, and 2006 tests were all pretty similar to each other and to the 2003 test.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if the 2008 exam bears some strong resemblance to the 2007 test in some way.</p>
<p>That's not to say that there is no value in the FR questions from 2003-2006, and I would certainly make sure you are familiar with slope fields and separable differential equations (two staples from this four year period), as I think they will come back at some point, but I would say that the 2007 test is probably the best indicator of what the 2008 test will look like, at least as far as the FR goes.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the great responses you posted! Where can I get information 2007 test?</p>
<p>For the 2007 Calc BC Free Response:
<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/calculus_bc/samp.html?calcbc%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/calculus_bc/samp.html?calcbc</a></p>
<p>For the 2007 Calc AB Free Response:
<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/calculus_ab/samp.html?calcab%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/calculus_ab/samp.html?calcab</a></p>
<p>Answers to both sets can be found here.
<a href="http://homepages.roadrunner.com/askmrcalculus/ap2007solutions.html%5B/url%5D">http://homepages.roadrunner.com/askmrcalculus/ap2007solutions.html</a></p>
<p>I recommend doing the AB tests too, as you can see, 3 questions from the FRQ are common to both AB and BC</p>
<p>Collection of MCQ</p>
<p><a href="http://tinyurl.com/2a38js%5B/url%5D">http://tinyurl.com/2a38js</a></p>
<p>Thank you for the links!!!</p>
<p>I used old FRQ's and Barron's and Princeton Review for practice problems.</p>
<p>Typically I had about 2-3 hours of HW everynight for AB, so the course load wasn't that bad I guess. Any day that we didn't have a quiz or test our teacher would give us a "review quiz" on random calc topics to make sure that we still practiced everything. Our tests always had questions from past topics too and we never knew what they would be, so we had to review it all, which in the end really helped.From march on I think all we did was review. We did every single FRQ since the early 90's and then some from even before that plus a couple of past MC tests. Noone in my school ever uses any kind of review book for this class, but that might just be b/c our teacher is amazing and really prepares us.</p>
<p>2-3 hours of HW every night for AB sounds like a lot.</p>
<p>Indeed, I usually didn't have any.</p>
<p>I used a Barrons book and somehow got a five. I am still really, really mystified as to how this happened. I taught myself the second semester, didn't finish the course, and didn't answer most of the FRQs.</p>
<p>Anyway, I DO think that the Barrons book was incredibly helpful.</p>
<p>My teacher taught us well, but I consider myself reasonably adept at mechanical math. Even so, I used the Stewart text to brush up on areas at which I was weak, such as integration approximations, Taylor series and applications of derivatives in graphs. I felt very good about my performance on the test when I went through it, as did most; we only have about 10% of the class get grades < 5.</p>