<p>I am taking Calc AB class, and I am doing VERY well in that class. But, I want to take Calc BC exam in May. What best prep books should I get? Can you score high on BC if you can do well on AB? Or they are completely different tests?</p>
<p>Well, part of the AB test is in the BC test. But you would have to teach yourself more methods of integration and infinite series. It's possible. The integration part is easy, but I got a little caught up on polar coordinates and infinite series at first. But, I think it can be done. Try PR.</p>
<p>well... you need someone to teach you series, L'Hopitals, Polar, etc. It's ugh very hard if you try to teach yourself. There's just TOO much to learn. I suggest you take AB and get a 5 as opposed to like a 3 or 4 on the BC test.</p>
<p>I disagree. The material on the BC test isn't really so difficult that the OP would be doomed to a 3 or 4 if he or she studies well. I don't think a 5 on the BC exam is out of reach.</p>
<p>hairypotty, I would suggest using a textbook, rather than a prep book to self-study the topics on the exam. The text written by James Stewart should do the job excellently. Since you don't have a teacher, I think the expanded explanation in textbooks will help you much more than the brief summaries in prep books, especially if you're ever going to have to use calculus again in college. If you study only from Princeton Review, you will probably either have to take calculus again in college or struggle with later material, even if you are able to pull off a 5 on the exam. I think it's worth the effort to develop a good, thorough understanding of the subject.</p>
<p>The extra BC material isn't hard to pick up by yourself. It's mostly sequences and series stuff (especially Taylor series) and a few extra stuff with polar/parametric integrals and integration techniques.</p>
<p>i like TC7 better by Lewis Leithold better. It's more descriptive and understanding than Stewart.</p>
<p>hairypotty, if you really are doing VERY well in AB class, then you actually don't even know how to do calc C topics in order to get a 5. About 2/3 of the test is AB stuff, and if you get a 100% on those questions, you'll get a 5 even if you get nothing from BC. Study taylor series and polar coordinates. Also parametric curves if you don't do them in AB, but you need no additional knowledge for those. You'll be just fine if you're doing well in AB. Any book will do.</p>
<p>^ That's not entirely true. It's weighted. That's why there is an AB subscore. There might be less C stuff, but that doesn't mean it is equally weighted.</p>
<p>It actually is entirely true. All questions are weighted equally. I've seen the rubrics. The AB subscore exists so that if you suck on the C stuff and did ok on the AB stuff, then you can still get credit for AB. However, if you did amazing on the AB stuff, you will still get a 5 no matter what. Obviously, that's a risk. The best idea would be to learn the calculus C material through an online tutoring service. If you want more info you can PM me.</p>
<p>I agree, if you know Calc AB inside and out and get close to 100% on those questions, you don't need much more to get a 5 in Calc BC. Just be sure to study Taylor series, since there's always a free response BC question about that.</p>
<p>I'm in the exact same dilemma as harrypotty. What online tutoring service would you recommend, chibearsfan17?</p>
<p>Use [url=<a href="http://www.thinkwell.com/%5DThinkwell%5B/url">http://www.thinkwell.com/]Thinkwell[/url</a>].
If you watch all the lectures and are decent at math, it's almost a guaranteed five. It comes with exercises as well.</p>
<p>I'm taking the AB course but will take BC test as well,</p>
<p>so funny, I am using barrons, and there's only a tiny portion of the knowledge that is only covered by BC, and get them all is just a 1 or 2 days' work.</p>
<p>What about if you are in Math Analysis? In that class for like a month or two you do precalc and algebra 2 review, then you do Calculus. I don't know if it's AB or before AB, but then use concepts in the BC book? So if you took that class and studied a bit more then should you take the BC exam?</p>
<p>About thinkwell: If I start now, will I have enough time to finish the lectures before May?</p>
<p>I just finished the topics for BC, and I dont see how people can have a whole year of BC. I read the princeton review twice, on solids of revolution, length of a curve, and polar coordinates, and taylor series. Then I read online for 2 hrs about different series and how to use them, and it wasnt that bad. IMO you dont need a tutoring service, there are plenty of free tutorials and practice problems on the web. Either on Mathsites or at college websites.</p>
<p>Hey mattd1688, which sites did you use to teach yourself? I'm also hoping to do that, because my math teacher goes excruciatingly slowly and will never get farther than applications of integration.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sosmath.com%5B/url%5D">http://www.sosmath.com</a>, I have been reading there about Taylor series and series in general and it really makes it easy to understand, and it gives a reasoning behind it that PR didnt give. There are other ones too, but some like wikipedia complicates everything and you are expected to know like every function/constant.</p>
<p>Well, I'm late, but I'm in this group. I just found out yesterday that I was, too. So, I haven't yet started studying for the BC material. I have been getting 90-95% on the AB tests, so I figure that I only need to get about 20% of the BC material correct to get a 5. Wash U also accepts an AB subscore of 5 with the same amount of credit as a 5 on the AB test, so that's why I'm doing this so late.</p>