<p>And I’m willing to assume that most of those test takers are better than average calculus students overall, so being slightly better than them makes you pretty good.</p>
<p>Proofs on the BC exam shouldn’t be implemented - at least not problems from Spivak/Apostol. Those books are meant for the best calculus students i.e. the ones who could score near perfect on the AP exam. They teach you calculus in depth, whereas 99% of college calc classes and the AP exam aim to give a good overview without too much depth.</p>
<p>Proofs on the AP BC test? LOL GG say goodbye to like all the 5’s. Besides, MOST introductory calculus classes do not go that in depth, unlike Spivak/other books of that nature.</p>
<p>You could say that about pretty much any AP exam. Yet, on almost every other exam, only about the top 10-15% score 5’s. I think the Physics C exams are much harder than the Calc BC exam, and, even then, the curve for the Physics C exams is around top 25% scoring 5’s. Still others like English Lit have top 6% scoring 5’s. What makes Calc BC so hard that the curve allows 40+% of test takers to score 5’s?</p>
<p>I don’t think they should introduce more topics or have students solving proofs, but I think they should fix the curve so 5’s aren’t so disproportionately overrepresented.</p>
<p>^I guess CB wants to make more money by making the curve so lenient? A lenient curve would encourage more people to take the exam. </p>
<p>And yeah, I agree that you could just master the AB part and still get a decent score on the BC exam. You don’t have to know anything about polar and parametric stuff, series, integrating by parts and still get a 5 if you knew the rest of the topics really well. </p>
<p>But I think I’m one of the ones who just barely made a 5 so I’d want to keep the curve the same lol</p>
<p>I love how the people here who want to increase the difficulty of the test/make the curve harsher are ones who already took the test and made a 5. They don’t care about screwing future test-takers.</p>
<p>Er, not necessarily. Our community college’s calculus final was not difficult, completely open note/open book, and there were bonus questions. Then again, our community college is not very good.</p>
<p>Jerry brings up an excellent point about changing the BC exam to include more BC topics. I also think that the amount of material should be expanded a bit. Look at this excerpt from the BC topic outline.</p>
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<p>Any respectable calc 2 class would go over trigonometric substitution, trigonometric integrals, and partial fractions with repeating linear factors and quadratic factors at the very least. There certainly should also be a greater emphasis on polar/parametric, as the two are pretty useful for multivariate calc.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s why Ax+b never showed up on released exams. And thank God trig substitution and trig integrals aren’t covered in the course outline. I was terrible at those.</p>
<p>^^BC exam should also expand more on the series topic. I was disappointed that only less than half of the series tests are on the BC exam when I cracked open the PR book.</p>
<p>Honestly, you can do quite well on the BC exam even without knowing too much BC topics. Having taken AB in school, I started studying the C portion of the course only about a little over a week before the exam by reading a few PR chapters, and miraculously still managed a 5. I felt like I honestly didn’t understand anything about series or partial fractions.</p>
<p>I find this so odd, because Calc BC has to be THE most feared AP exam at my school. I guess it’s probably because I hear it from all the people that shouldn’t be in there. You all talk about having incredibly selective BC classes, while pretty much any half-wit that passed regular calc at my school gets in. Tell me where you guys are at, I’m moving :P</p>
<p>i’m in new york city (YEAH!). the BC classes are about 75% math-proficient, with the rest either in-between. there are like 2-3 people who got in 'cause they sucked up to their precalc honors teacher.</p>
<p>i myself (junior) skipped precalc into AB, aced the class, studied BC on my own, and scored a 5 (2010 late testing version - had polars¶metrics and enough series). while it is true that an AB person could do WELL on BC with minimal studying, to get a 5 and really know the material still takes some dedication and the supposed “math insight”. i personally spent a lot of time on the BC topics, making sure i was just as proficient in them as my BC class peers. that’s the only way to guarantee a 5 on the BC exam. luck is just a part of it.</p>