<p>For the past few years, only about two or three people have actually gotten above a 1 on both AP Calculus exams. What would you suggest students do if a teacher obviously isn't helping the students out?</p>
<p>There are a number of things that you can do to make sure that you have some decent success on the exam.</p>
<p>(1) Make sure that you’re actually prepared for calculus. I once taught in a school that hadn’t had any students score above a one for years. They didn’t do much better under my leadership. One reason was that I really wasn’t that familiar with the rigors of AP Calculus, but another factor was that the school was placing a number of students into the class that hadn’t passed precalculus. We spent an inordinate time on basics that already should have been mastered (such as fractions and factoring of quadratics) and that prevented learning of the calculus material.</p>
<p>(2) Check out the AP curriculum requirements at AP Central. Make sure that you’re familiar with them. Make sure that you’ll get through those requirements by April. Be prepared to self-study any materials that your teacher won’t get through by about the second week of April.</p>
<p>(3) Once you’re through the content requirements, be prepared to take some of the old mock AP exams. AP Central has some of the old free response questions and some mock multiple choice questions. Be prepared to struggle with the free response, but expect to get better as you take more and more of them. Grade yourself honestly; don’t give yourself credit for things that you’re not sure are adequate.</p>
<p>(4) There’s a difference between the teacher who isn’t helping the students out because they don’t feel like it and the teacher who isn’t helping the students out because they don’t know how. The latter can be a resource and an ally to help you out, while the former means that you’ll probably need to rely on other students that you trust to help you out. It’s important to find out which one of these is the case, but make sure to do so gently. A “Hey, I found these tests online and I didn’t know how they got this answer. What can you tell me?” will probably answer this kind of question for you pretty easily.</p>
<p>(5) Along the same lines as above, be proactive. If you have questions, ask them; if your classmates are screwing around, help to get them to knock it off. It may not seem cool, but at least you’ll be on track to get better than a one.</p>
<p>(6) Keep in mind that in order to earn a one, you basically need to get less than 30%. Some years that percentage is even lower. Working through your textbook – and perhaps an AP prep book – should give you enough practice and experience to get more than a 1 as long as you have the background and motivation.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Does only one teacher teach AP Calculus?</p>
<p>‘Does only one teacher teach AP Calculus?’</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>To OP:</p>
<p>Calculus at my school is the same way. Every year calc kids recieve 1’s or maybe 2’s. I personally know the teacher and he isn’t a bad teacher. I think it’s the kids. Maybe they don’t belong in AP. But oh well… You should be the first in your class to pass calc. Show others it’s possible because maybe everyone else is put-off by calc. But I really don’t know. You should maybe check out tutorial websites like [UCCP</a> Open Access](<a href=“http://www.ucopenaccess.org%5DUCCP”>http://www.ucopenaccess.org) which I find useful at times.</p>
<p>The website Vandan mentioned is good… I would also recommend PR or something like Calculus Demystified or Calculus for Dummies… all good books if you’re not feeling confident in AP Calc (though if I remember correctly, the last two books don’t have all of the BC material, only AB)</p>
<p>If you’re calculus teacher won’t help, maybe you can go to some other math or science teachers who are more willing. The calculus teacher probably isn’t the only one who knows how to do math.</p>
<p>Most people who tank in calculus tank because they really don’t know algebra and other necessary topics for getting ready for calculus. I recommend ALEKS </p>
<p>[ALEKS</a> – Assessment and Learning, K-12, Higher Education, Automated Tutor, Math](<a href=“http://www.aleks.com%5DALEKS”>http://www.aleks.com) </p>
<p>because it can review all the math you need for calculus, and you take an unlimited number of free trials of it before deciding whether or not to pay for it.</p>
<p>at our school everyone gets 5s
if you dont…u get PWNed by the teachers
who like their perfect 5 average</p>
<p>…but yeah, i’ve heard quite a lot about AP calc in certain schools…students always getting 1s…but some ppl have self-studied, so why don’t u try buying some books and doing practice problems? if you learn from the prep books u would probably pass…with a 3…and if you get a textbook, even better :D</p>
<p>at our school everyone gets 5s
if you dont…u get PWNed by the teachers
who like their perfect 5 average</p>
<p>This was definitely relevant to the topic.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is a joke or not but one must wonder what kind of calculus teachers your school has cause thats just straight up embarrassing lol. Maybe your whole calculus class and especially your teacher should watch a bit of Stand and Deliver (1988) for some inspiration.</p>
<p>At my school, 95% of the people gets 5’s, the ones that get 4’s or below are laughed at because our teacher grades the AP tests. Our grade for BC is based on one test, the final which is a practice AP test (AB test first sem, BC test second).</p>
<p>Anyways best way to do it IMO is to talk to your counselor and ask he/she if you can self-study or go to another school for the course (maybe a community college).</p>
<p>Wow. I didn’t know it was even possible to recieve anything lower than a 5!!
(must be the CC effect)</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Stand and Deliver: DVD: Edward James Olmos,Estelle Harris,Mark Phelan,Virginia Paris,Mark Eliot,Adelaida Álvarez,Will Gotay,Patrick Baca,Ingrid Oliu,Carmen Argenziano,Richard Martinez (IV),Mark Everett,Tyde Kierney,Rosanna DeSoto,Bodie Ol](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Deliver-Edward-James-Olmos/dp/6305161917/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Deliver-Edward-James-Olmos/dp/6305161917/)</p>
<p>that was such an awesome movie! too bad the calc class is not doing as well as it did…</p>
<p>They probably just breezed through their algebra, geometry, pre-cal, and AP Calculus classes just to have a rude awakening at the test.</p>
<p>Word of advice: set a stable foundation in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry before you study Calculus.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>“At my school, 95% of the people gets 5’s, the ones that get 4’s or below are laughed at because our teacher grades the AP tests. Our grade for BC is based on one test, the final which is a practice AP test (AB test first sem, BC test second).”</p>
<p>In my opinion, that doesn’t mean anything. I had a teacher who also graded the exams and that can help with learning the best way to work out your equations on paper, but it only goes so far. There are thousands of AP graders and the chance of your teacher getting your paper is next to none, and even if they did they don’t know your name. </p>
<p>Point blank the key to success in AP Calculus is a solid background in the fundamentals of Arithmetic (Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, Pre-Cal) and then a work ethic to not only be able to derive equations but to fully understand how to solve problems. The AP Exam likes to test you on the types of problems you havn’t seen (like we saw this past year) so it’s important to fully understand the theory behind the problems. Teachers are an important part of this process to get the students motivated and teach the material, but students also share a responsibility in work at home. IT IS an Advanced Placement/College class.</p>
<p>Graders are actually prohibited from grading tests from their own school. Even in the event that they did grade the tests from their school, tests are graded by two separate graders, whose scores need to agree.</p>
<p>The benefit of having a grader who teaches the class, however, is that they know the in’s and out’s of the actual AP grading. While anybody can look at the AP rubrics for the free-response, there are a large number of other mistakes/variations that appear in actual responses that do not make it onto the scoring guide. Graders are more likely to know how those are scored.</p>
<p>Wow that’s crazy! My school has 100% passing rate, and although it should probably make me feel comfortable that I’m going to pass too, it just makes me feel really nervous! What if I ruin their perfect record!</p>