<p>Hi. I am taking precalc honors right now(Methods I IB), and I am selfstudying AB and BC. I have been looking at the kids at school, and they are doing super hard looking problems. In all honesty, could I go through that study guide, Master the AP Calculus AB/BC Exam, occasionally doing some practice problems out of the textbook I have, and get a 5?</p>
<p>The BC exam is a killer. Don't be fooled by the "5 is a 70 percent" type stuff, this is serious math they are doing. I even remember seing a Lagrange multiplier problem on the BC, which I only learned about this year (In multivariate). In all honesty, no matter how hard the class material is, it is easy compared to what you would find on the BC exam. To review for the exam, buy a calculus course book (or ask if you could borrow one) and study all the hard problems. Also get a multivariate book if you want a high 80 or 90 percent, but if you can do the hard problems in a calculus book (study the whole book, which is usually 3 semesters of material), you can definitely get a 5. So bottom line, study the hard stuff, and you will do well. I hope this helps, and good luck!</p>
<p>Wait... you're taking precalc this year, and you also want to self study AB and BC at the same time?? It's going to be hard, and you're going to have to do some serious studying like right NOW.</p>
<p>Why do you want to take the BC exam this year anyway when you're not at that level class-wise yet? And if you're really that into math, why are you taking math methods ib? That's for the standard level math kids, it's very easy compared to AP calc. Why don't you take math hl ib instead?</p>
<p>If you're going to study for the BC, get a</a> book of previous FRQ's and solutions to practice with. My teacher last year had that book and it's extremely useful in getting used to the type of questions the AP Exam contains.</p>
<p>My school's BC class is incredible. Our math teacher hand-selects 12-16 students, and all of them end up with 5's. So, you're getting a biased perspective from me that the BC exam is easy. I probably ended up getting close to 100%.</p>
<p>You know.. that whole hand-selecting thing, it sounds really excluding for a lot of students. It's just like those schools I hear of that say "Oh <em>OUR</em> calc bc pass rate? 100% 5s." That doesn't allow for student improvement or anything, it's only saying "I want so-and-so.. because they're easier to teach and can make my ap reputation better."</p>
<p>It's much better to have a class of reasonable students who are motivated and willing to work. Then you can get the results based on achievement and dedication, and not results from those you know will get it anyway. Aren't teachers supposed to be teaching us.. helping those who need help.. encouraging those lagging behind and making a difference in our lives? Whatever happened to that?</p>
<p>I know you didn't want to hear this, elizabeth, but your teacher sounds like someone only wishing to teach those that he/she deems to be more "easily taught," which really makes his/her life much easier.</p>
<p>Occasionally doing problems won't cut it. I remember in my BC class (a legend as a killer at our school, but the teacher is incredible, like 99% 3=< and 50% 5s) we did about 50 integrals, mostly difficult ones, in late march for a homework assignment "Integrate 'till you disintegrate". You should do lots of problems from your textbook, and its best to go through the old FRQs from past tests.</p>
<p>Just to clarify: she didn't directly pick the students. It was more a self-selection thing. We started meeting in... March or April, I think. She began right off the bat by saying that students that had earned A's in Precalc tended to average B's in her class, and B+ and below were not advised, since they tended to earn C's. After that, we got problem sets to turn in every week for the rest of the previous school year, over and on top of our regular precalc homework, and the class actually started meeting in September. So she didn't exactly choose the students, but weeded the class down by seeing who was willing to do the hard work and was motivated enough.</p>
<p>The test is extremely easy. All you have to do is do all of the problems in the book and all of the problems in REA's Calculus Problems Solvers.</p>
<p>Icymoon: </p>
<p>I have no problem at all with what Elizabeth's teacher did, even if she did hand-select students. While this is going to sound elitest, in 95% of classes, the teacher has to teach to the densest people, and end up wasting huge amounts of the smart kids time. I spent <em>so</em> many hours in my classes staring at the ceiling, staring at my desk, wondering why I had to sit through something so asinine. I would read the book and get it. There was no challenge. I would sometimes get like 2/10 on participation in my classes, because they were such a waste of time. </p>
<p>So why not have a class where you don't waste people's time. The kids who aren't as bright resent the smart kids in class just as much as the smart kids resent being there. Having classes where I <em>was</em> challenged (I can think of a couple; AP US History in 10th grade was one of them. I got a 4/100 on my first essay, and that made me want to learn. There were a couple other gems here and there) was such a blessing. And those kids have to be taught anyway, just like any other kids. So why does putting them in a class that they want to be in, and the teacher wants to teach exclude other people. There can be other calculus classes for the rest, but I have absolutely no problem with one for the "stars." </p>
<p>We should not all strive for mediocracy. People should not be forced to sit through drivel and blather if they can do better. At least that's how I feel. Man am I glad that I'm done with high school.</p>
<p>Galen</p>
<p>Elizabeth, I'm glad to know that your teacher didn't just choose the students, but weeded them down first by seeing who had the determination and motivation. Thanks for clarifying.</p>
<p>Galen, did you mean mediocrity and not "mediocracy"? I'm not saying we should all lower ourselves to the standards of other people (in your case, being in a class with "densest people") and sacrifice our own intellectual stimulation, but rather that if there are people willing to work, why not let them?</p>
<p>At my school, there are many BC calculus classes. The majority of them are for students who did okay in AB, but want to pursue BC, and so they are allowed the chance to do so with others that are in the same boat. Then there's two classes for very high level math students, and it includes BC curriculum, but goes over and beyond that as well in one year. This is the class where, as you seem to indicate several times in your post, that you would rather belong to challenge yourself.</p>
<p>I'm simply saying that it's often helpful to many students to give everyone who's willing to work hard a chance to develop themselves intellectually, rather than excluding people by a teacher's whims. I find nothing wrong with having different levels of classes for bright students, after all, that's why there's regular/honors/ap/ib classes.</p>
<p>My school made the wonderful decision of opening AP classes to ANYONE who wants to take them. US History last year was probably the hardest course I'll ever take in high school because, at the time, AP selection was merit-based and everyone in the course was in it for the work and the challenge. Now that we have "regular" students in all of my APs, it's annoying to have to drop standards and expectations in classes (especially when nearly all of the lower-level students really don't want to work). </p>
<p>Examples: We color with crayons in my AP European History class. >_<
We waste about a full two periods (out of five per week) simply talking about nothing in AP French.
I score perfectly on AP Bio tests while the lowest score is usually about a sixth of mine.
Three quarters of the people in AP Psychology don't do their homework--and can't even be bothered to hand in TAKE HOME unit tests.</p>
<p>And Icymoon, I agree with the fact that it's good to give every student the opportunity so long as they have the determination and drive. It's just the people who can't be bothered to care about academics in an AP Class that bother me.</p>
<p>It seems to me that icymoon makes an undefended (and, indeed, invalid) assertion that (i) the practice of hand selecting students (even "at a teacher's whim") for AP Calc BC implies (ii) that this makes things a breeze for the teacher of the hard course and the students in it, since the students pretty much teach themselves without much trouble.</p>
<p>Of course, (ii) does not follow from (i). Caltech is the perfect counterexample. Here, we hand-select the best of the best (sometimes, I am sure it seems, at a whim). Then, we kick your ass (to put it bluntly). You see, the benefit of handpicked smart students is that one can provide challenges that are usually absent. icymoon WOULD be right if teachers handpicked the best and then let them coast by teaching to a lower level than they were at; this would be wrong. But there is no evidence that this is, in fact, the case.</p>
<p>So I'm totally with Galen on this one, though it makes me sound a bit elitist too. There is a place for the smart and the motivated, and a place for just the motivated. It doesn't serve anyone to pretend that meritocratic (not just effort-based) measures are harmful. Nor is it good argumentative style to assume that just because the kids in certain classes are smart, those classes must be easy to teach and take. Come here and we'll show you ;-)</p>
<p>I just think that the practice of hand selecting smart students is going to make it obviously easier for the teacher than teaching BOTH the brightest students and the less bright students. Reminder: I'm talking about high school, which is much different from college.</p>
<p>And when I don't particularly like the hand selecting thing, I'm talking specifically about BC calc ap (besides, it is under the specific bc calc thread). I'm not talking about everything in general, so please don't generalize my statements to include other things like Caltech. I do agree that hand-selecting can work for certain things like college admissions and other situations, but I'm trying to say that determination, motivation, hard work, etc should definitely be a factor in choosing AP BC calc classes.</p>
<p>Dude it's easy. I got 100% without even taking a course in it. just study the Barron's book and you'll do fine.</p>
<p>Thank you for correcting my typo on mediocrity.</p>
<p>Most things in the world are generalizable. I think that it's unlikely that the BC calc exam exists in a void where it would be a bad idea to have some method (other than just who is willing to work hard) of selecting people. </p>
<p>I also suspect that, first of all, even if a class was handpicked if one or two students who were not selected, but highly motivated, went and talked to the teacher and demonstrated that they had the competency required to take the class, and were willing to put in extraordinary effort, any reasonable teacher (and thus any teacher teaching AP Calc BC; often times teaching this class creates much more effort, as there is typically only one section of it, meaning crafting entirely new lesson plans, as opposed to just repeating the old one) would be willing to at least give them a chance for the first couple of weeks, while letting them know that they would be on for the ride of their life. </p>
<p>Also, it's possible that we come from different backgrounds, and that helps explain part of our discrepency in views. I come from a public high school in rural southern oregon. We did not have a single BC calculus class. You clearly come from an elite private high school, given that you have "many sections" of BC, and even "two classes for very high level math students." Perhaps most, if not all, students at your high school who were willing to put in lots of effort could have handled the BC class. This was certainly not the case at my school, most of the people who took the AB class should not have been there, the teacher included. </p>
<p>And yeah, try teaching a class of really, really bright kids sometime. I would have absolutely hated to teach a class of folks like Ben, or myself, or any of a number of other people. Whenever the teacher said something that I didn't think was true, I'd tell them, and ask them to defend it. I'd correct the mistakes on the board that others either just didn't notice (90%) or didn't care to (9%). If I was the teacher, having even just two or three of me, in a high school class, would have been a nightmare. 16 hand selected versions of me or my peers? Oh god, I'd run for the hills. </p>
<p>Galen</p>
<p>I've heard from my past math teachers about teaching really really bright kids. They many times ruin the lesson plan by saying (out loud) the final conclusion of the class period within the first 5 minutes (so she just told some of them to stay quiet, and told the troublemakers to take a nap). It was an interesting class, probably one of the smartest classes she (teacher) has had in a couple of years...</p>
<p>I'm taking the BC exam this year... I go to a public school of about 3000 students. my class consists of 14 students (probably the smallest class at the school) and an awesome teacher. it's really a fun time, and it seems like we don't need to rush through the material, and it's somewhat easy to learn. i really enjoy it.</p>
<p>if you're considering schools like this, bc should be a joke. i took it early in a class where we ended up pretty much meeting the national avg in terms of score distributions. however, a 5 shouldn't be that much of a problem on this test, we got this spiral review book with a couple of practice tests but really all you need is to not be intimidated, i did really limited review but i took the test seriously and did fine, nothing special.</p>
<p>My BC class has 4 people and meets before school, because there're so few of us. Last year there were only 2. I took AB 1st semester last year, and then did it by myself for 2nd That 2nd semester was awesome, because after the AP test, I went ahead and learned almost all of BC. However, that's all my school offers, so I'm stuck in BC this whole year. It's pretty easy, and I barely study. I wish my school had more challenging classes. I can't do running start (taking a community college class), because that would take up 2 or 3 periods and thus completely mess up my schedule.</p>
<p>However, I must say that my BC teacher is really good. He's probably the smartest teacher at my school. Besides teaching all the AB and BC students, he IS the German department. He's widely read and often integrates history, philosophy, and theology into his classes. In AB, he had everyone write a paper on the philosophy of mathematics. These kinds of things significantly decrease the bore-factor.</p>