Calculus Wizards help me out please

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

<p>I took AP calculus BC in grade 12 in high school and did well in the course and ap exam. (5 on BC exam)
Now I'm in first year and I'm taking the first semester of calculus because my university doesn't accept AP calculus credits.
I had a first midterm a while ago, and I did horribly. (20 out of 30) I was surprised that most problems on this exam were much harder than what was on the exams of high school AP calculus course I took.
The first midterm mainly covered limits.
The prof teaching the course is infamous for making really difficult exams.
For me, solving the limit probs were a joke until taking this midterm at university. The prof doesn't even allow us to use any type of calculator.</p>

<p>I fear this equivalent university calculus will be much harder than AP calculus course in high school and ap exam. This course is curved, but I feel curving will not make much difference, because many people in the class do better than me or as good as I, because many of them are said to have taken ap calculus courses in high school, too. (I saw quite a few people who got over 28 out of 30)
In AP calculus, just reviewing class notes and homework problems and doing problems on prep books earned me high marks on exams.
But this approach doesn't seem to work for this calculus course I'm taking in university now.</p>

<p>The prof advised us to do many problems, but I don't have much time to do all of them in the textbook.
How can you ensure that you get prepared for the difficult questions the prof will put on exams? Is there any other way than to do as many problems as possible in the textbook? What is the secret to getting perfect or close-to-perfect marks on university calculus exams given by tough, intense profs?</p>

<p>Sorry I had to write this in a hurry.</p>

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<p>Just find questions of every type and make sure you know them. I really dont no wat else to tell you. Its a pretty vague question and there’s no right answer since every teacher is different. My calc teacher is VERY picky on work so I make sure I know the steps. Your tests are VERY hard so I would study the very hard questions.</p>

3

<p>A couple of thoughts:</p>

<p>(1) If you can find another professor, networking through other students to find “good” professors is a solid way to go.</p>

<p>(2) Many of the colleges that don’t accept AP credits are colleges that believe that their programs are “better” than AP. These same colleges frequently use these classes as “weeder” classes to try to separate the cream from the crop. There are no shortcuts to these classes.</p>

<p>So if your tests are very hard, you should (A) make sure you completely have the easy ones mastered, (B) make sure you can do the “hard” ones without significant difficulty, and (C) make sure that you can do problems harder than the hard ones assigned where possible.</p>

<p>Many students get by by merely “reviewing” homework problems, but I would say “redoing” homework problems, especially the ones that you didn’t understand earlier, will help immensely.</p>

<p>Further, I would recommend a study group, as those are invaluable at college.</p>

<p>Lastly, most of the time you’re spending signficantly fewer hours in actual classes in college than you would spend in the classroom in high school. Plan to spend those hours preparing for your classes, rather than doing whatever else you might have planned, and you’ll have more success.</p>