I am currently taking the Cal AB class, and if I want to self-study BC, what extra topics will be included? Also, how hard is the test?
<p>1) techniques of integration
2) series and sequences (most people find this to be very difficult)
3) some stuff with vectors and components of acceleration, plus polar coordinates, etc. </p>
<p>The test really isn't that bad. Most people miss the series question(s) anyway, and techniques of integration aren't hard to learn. The vector and polar stuff isn't too bad either. With #1 and #2 I STRONGLY suggest that you take some time and just identify what technique you'd use to approach the problem for like 30 different examples in your book. Sure it'll take some time, but I think it will make it much, much easier. I think that 60% of the difficulty with series and sequences is identifying which technique to use and the other 40% is just that people are scared of summation notation. It's really very logical though, easier than the rest of calculus I think.</p>
<p>Marlgirl, have you self-studied BC?</p>
<p>And, is using a review book (like PR) good enough to learn those topics?</p>
<p>The differences in the exams are given here. It is hard to judge how difficult it will be for you since it depends a lot on your mathematic abilities (which I don't know). Self-studying for the BC exam is definately worth it though IMO. Our teacher taught Calc AB and BC by lessons. There were 50 lessons for AB and 65 lessons for BC, 15 new lessons is a small price to pay compare to taking an entire extra semester of calc in college. </p>
<p>Talk to your teacher about possible tutoring of the BC topics. I also suggest using some textbook to teach you the BC topics, review guides don't go into enough detail about the general theory because like the above poster said, series can be extremely difficult the first time you deal with them. The Barrons review book is probably your best bet, much more difficult than the actual AP exam so if you can get through it you will be sufficiently prepared.</p>
<p>I took the BC exam even though my class only taught the AB material.</p>
<p>Alternate between a study guide (I used Princeton review) and a textbook. I'd suggest to take a week or two to study it all. I only took two days to study, so I didn't get as much study time in for the polar coordinates material (I got a 4 on the BC test,) which was unfortunate because one of the free response questions was polar coordinate calculus. So I'm sure if you took at least a week, you'd be good.</p>
<p>Here's my advice for the series question: look online at all the old free responses, it's ALWAYS the 6th question and it's ALWAYS the same style. You simply have to understand how that one problem works, and it truly is an easy 9 points.</p>