Calculus BC for an ABer

<p>Alright, so I took Calculus I last year as a junior at my community college... [due to a schedule conflict]</p>

<p>This year I'm in "AP Calculus BC" although since there were only four of us in the course, it was independent study... and we just sat there with the AB class, soaking in the material again...</p>

<p>Point is... is it possible to get a 4/5 on the AB subscore of the BC exam... but a 1/2 overall? I mean I know my Calc I material pretty well... and math is my strength [33 act math] so... should i be freaking out?</p>

<p>[i live in florida, where they pay for our tests, and mine has already been ordered... but the BC version, so i kinda have to take it... ]</p>

<p>Well there is additional material like polar, vectors and coordinate stuff. I would spend time with the Barrons book- I <em>believe</em> it has both BC/AB material.</p>

<p>Don't freak out. The rest of the material is EXTREMELY easy. I'm doing the same thing: took AB last year, self-studying BC this year. Spend a couple hours on series and approximations + a little time on polar, parametric and vector stuff (this isn't tested a lot) and you'll do fine if you have the AB down pretty good.</p>

<p>Yeah, Barron's has both. Also, it seems like a lot of the material on the BC test is covered in AB; it's just a little more complex. So, you, having a strong aptitude in mathematics, probably won't have any problem extrapolating. Be sure to check out differential equations too (I'm not sure if that's AB or BC).</p>

<p>LOL, say i know VERY little BC material [just the intro stuff like integration by parts, l'hoptial's rule, slope fields, etc.]... </p>

<p>what should i expect?</p>

<p>I want to get a 4/5 AB subscore... is that possible? I mean, yeah, I guess I'll cram some random BC topics... but I was totally banking on just taking the AB test... but the AP coordinator at our school already ordered the tests... ::sigh::</p>

<p>Definitely learn parametrics and taylor series, they test it almost every year on the FR. Look at the past FR, and see what you need to learn from there.</p>

<p>Actually, if you just mastered the AB stuff and took the BC exam, and ended up getting all (or like 95%) of the AB questions right, you would get a 5 AB subscore and around a 4 on the BC test.</p>

<p>A little bit of differential equations is on the AB test...but there is more in BC. Barron's will definitely help with this.</p>

<p>lol, is this how 40% of BCers get 5s? ...</p>

<p>The curve is extremely high for the BC test (you only need a raw score of like 68/108), so assuming you get all the AB questions correct and skip all the BC ones, it is still possible to pull off a 5 depending on the curve for that year.</p>

<p>If you wanted, you could learn the BC material in the next two days. I did so in a week, along with my regular schoolwork and reading The Great Gatsby (which is an amazing feat, considering how slowly I read). Just skip school monday and tuesday and study Calc BC, and you'll be on your way to an automatic 5...</p>