Official AP Calculus Thread for 2009

<p>@ Alluric: If you click on the “Composite Score” piece on the site you link to, their curve says 1 = 0 - 24, 2 = 25-39, 3 = 40-54, 4 = 55-69, 5 = 70-108.</p>

<p>As best I can tell, those numbers just assume 70 will be a 5 and decrease by increments of 15 for each grade level. That might be a little generous in assuming a 4 or a 5 (two of the last three cut scores we’ve seen have been higher than that) and a little harsh for a 2 or a 3 (none of the last three scores have required 40 points for a 3 or 25 points for a 2).</p>

<p>so the AB format is 55 mins for 28 non-calc MC’s, 50 mins for 17 calc MC’s and 45 mins for non-calc 3 FRQ’s and 45 mins for calc 2 FRQ’s right?
are the calc MC’s much harder than the non-calc MC’s?</p>

<p>I’m totally not even going to school today. I’m just trying to cram whatever info I can…this is going to suckkkkk</p>

<p>^ haha same, i skipped yesterday and today</p>

<p>@psp-fifa-fan: In my experience, students tend to actually do better (percentage-wise) on the calculator MC than the non-calculator MC.</p>

<p>That’s weird I do a lot better on questions that can be done without a calculator (I hate having to graph things and find intersect, I make mistakes with these problems)</p>

<p>^me too! now why is that? haha I guess they’re just easier?</p>

<p>Exam is tomorrow! I think I’m fairly ready (got 90% on a practice exam), but I’m worried that I’ll blank out.</p>

<p>If anyone’s on now, let’s study together (AIM chatroom): CCAPCALCREVIEW</p>

<p>For both AB and BC.</p>

<p>I’m up for it</p>

<p>On open ended, do I have to justify if a minimum is indeed a minimum, and not only a critical point, or would I be safe to assume that the critical point I solve for on optimization problems is the one desired? In other words, should I show that I’m plugging in test points to verify that the sign does change in the right way?</p>

<p>Also, what do they prefer, the second derivative test or plugging in test points?</p>

<p>chatroom for calc studying? i’m in. please invite me! user: jennieblue22 on aim, thanks</p>

<p>@ smash20 - I’m not 100% sure, but if you are asked to find a minimum, you are usually expected to justify. I haven’t seen questions asking to “justify a minimum” though; it’s moreso “find the critical point/value at x” and explain whether it’s an abs max, abs min, or neither, or something like that. </p>

<p>I think they like the 2nd derivative test, because if you make a sign chart, you have to expressly label what it is and what you are doing, so 2nd deriv. test is faster. For abs. min/max, though, be sure to test the end points.</p>

<p>I’m very confused about something very stupid… Whats the difference between convergence and divergence? How much percent of the exam is sequences are series?</p>

<p>A series converges if the sum of its terms “add up” to a number. For all geometric series of the form aR1…aR^2…aR^n, the series converges to A / (1-r) if abs(r) < 1.</p>

<p>Divergence is where a series doesn’t converge to anything. 1/n is such a series. </p>

<p>In addition, conditional convergence or a radius of convergence is when a series doesn’t converge fully, but it converges within a certain radius. The ratio test is most commonly used to find the radius of convergence.</p>

<p>PLEASE HELP!!! I do not know when to use the Cylindrical Shell method and when not to when finding the volume of revolution??? Why do we even need it anyway?? :S My teachers didn’t know how to explain it to me,so,lol,help?</p>

<p>Are there 4 different packets on the test (MC non-calc, MC calc, FR calc, FR non-calc)? Or are they all in one booklet? If it was like that, wouldn’t people cheat?</p>

<p>Generally, if you revolve around the y axis you use shells and around the x axis you use slices (assuming you are integrating with respect to x, it is the opposite if it is with respect to y).</p>

<p>Are there 4 different packets on the test (MC non-calc, MC calc, FR calc, FR non-calc)? Or are they all in one booklet? If it was like that, wouldn’t people cheat??</p>

<p>Are decimal approximations (to 4+ decimal places or so) always acceptable as a replacement for actual values?</p>

<p>I am the administrator for tech-shep.com, I made the AP Calc exam calculator. Is there anything you would like me to add to the calculator?</p>