<p>Should I use barrons and PR simultaneously?</p>
<p>Are you talking about for helping you out during the year or just prep for the AP exam? If you are using a decent text book, there really is no need to spend money on books like Barrons and Princeton Review. However, I find the Barrons to be more comprehensive and the practice problems were closer to what my teacher actually puts on his tests, so I would go with Barrons.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input. I am talking about actually "independently" studying BC. I got up to Algebra 2 last year but don't have room in my schedule for a math class due to some required classes I need for graduation. I am talking about using barrons and PR simultaneously to learn AB/BC and end up taking the BC exam this coming May.</p>
<p>Wow, you went right from Algebra II to Calc BC, at my school that would be going from freshman classes to Senior classes in your sophmore year. How do you intend to do calc without trig, or pre algebra or anything? If you can pull that off, that would be awsome.</p>
<p>I really don't think its a wise idea at all. I'm not saying that's impossible to do, but alot of people who were good in Algebra II and Precalculus/Trigonomentry end up struggling to get a "C" in AP Calculus AB and these people are actually pretty good in math. The BC exam is one full year of Calculus whereas the AB exam is the equivalent of a semester. </p>
<p>Even if you are extremely intuitive to grasp on materials, you would still spend a large amount of your time studying Calculus and there's no guarantee that you'll even understand it--let alone with Barron's</p>
<p>BC isn't really that hard. I finished studying limits, continuity, and basic differentiation. I can do most of the limit, continuity, and basic differentiation problems on the BC exam with speed and accuracy. The ideas are pretty simple for me to grasp. If I can do questions from the BC exam, I know I am mastering the concepts.</p>
<p>In general, barron's is harder (way harder in some cases) than the actual AP test and the Princeton Review is a little bit easier or about the same.</p>
<p>To summarize: Barron's=Harder, PR= easier</p>
<p>If I were you, I'd start w/ PR and then move on to Barron's as I got better at grasping some of the more difficult concepts. If you're not using a textbook, do the actual reading from Princeton Review--Barrons' explanations can be unnecessarily dense. Barrons is most helpful for its end of chapter questions and review tests.</p>
<p>You will want old AP exams, especially for the free response questions.
See <a href="http://www.moems.org/calcSolo.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.moems.org/calcSolo.htm</a></p>
<p>44% of all students sitting for the BC exam in 2005 earned a 5 -- probably a reflection of good preparation rather than an easy exam.
<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/exgrd_sum/2005.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/exgrd_sum/2005.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
You will want old AP exams, especially for the free response questions.
See <a href="http://www.moems.org/calcSolo.htm%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D">http://www.moems.org/calcSolo.htm
[/quote]
</a>
Do these come with questions?</p>
<p>The precalc class I took at my school didn't really help me at all, except for the trig. Basically it was trig and a review of everything I already knew from Algebra II so most of it was generally a waste of time for me. Are limits supposed to be covered in precalc? 'Cause we didn't do them at all until calc</p>
<p>Yes - Questions and solutions fifteen years of AB and BC exams.</p>
<p>You can use any good calculus book (we use Stewart's Calculus) to prepare. All you need to know is that it covers everything with single-variable calculus, and the chapters to such topics can easily be found in nearly any caculus text. For your purposes you would want one with lots of practice problems after each section.</p>