Tips and Tricks of the Calculus BC Gurus

Test Preparation
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<p>Yeah. I got the title from "Tips and tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus." Interesting read. Anyways, I was wondering if all the people who took BC Calc could tip in some tips and tricks.</p>

<p>One problem I have is that they give some function, ask you to take the derivative, and find mins and maxes. This is easy enough when the function is small, but when it is some huge function, with like 1 polynomials, and having to use product and quotient rule, I can't seem to do it quickly enough.</p>

<p>So basically, If I have a function like ((x-2)^2)/(x^2-8x+7), how can I quickly take the derivative, without having to multiply bunches of polynomials?</p>

<p>Also, would you guys Arco's to be of the same difficulty as the real thing? How much harder is barrons than the real thing?</p>

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<p>i think you would just have to take the derivative..i dont know of any shortcuts to find the actual values of the min/max. But if they just ask you how many, then you can just tell by looking at the original function without taking the derivative.</p>

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<p>Don't worry. The AP exam doesn't have messy questions of the type that concerns you.</p>

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<p>Yes. Here's how to make yourself feel better:</p>

<p>Take the Princeton Review practice exam and fail it.
Take the Released AP Calc exam and get a 5 by an enormous margin.</p>

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<p>does anyone know if the released calc ap exams come in pdf format</p>

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<p>They come in hardcopy book format. If you're talking about online versions, I had no idea they existed.</p>

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<p>This isn't any BC trick, but you can use logarithmic differentiation for something like that.</p>

<p>y = ((x-2)^2)/(x^2-8x+7)</p>

<p>ln (y) = ln [((x-2)^2)/(x^2-8x+7)]</p>

<p>Then use rules of logarithms to separate it:</p>

<p>ln (y) = ln [(x-2)^2] - ln (x^2-8x+7)</p>

<p>Then it's easy to differentiate:</p>

<p>y'/y = (-2/(x-2)^3) - (2x-8)</p>

<p>y' = [(-2/(x-2)^3) - (2x-8)]y</p>

<p>Substitute y in from the original equation, so your answer is something like:</p>

<p>y' = [(-2/(x-2)^3) - (2x-8)][((x-2)^2)/(x^2-8x+7)]</p>

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<p>Does anyone know if the Arco's is harder than the real test? I seem to be doing average on the practice test. Would you recommend my studying Arco's or PR? I tried studying with Barrons' but I did not like it.</p>

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<p>why don't you just practice with past test questions? you can't go wrong with those</p>

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<p>Hm... I should be reviewing my tests for convergence...and motion in a plane. Gah... But this TLC show on Texas glamour is so interesting.</p>

<p>Okay. Is it established that a score of 64+ is a 5? And 3-4/6 FR Q's are AB. I don't know. Is this much prep necessary for a test with such a nice curve?</p>

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<p>modestmouse: my teacher basically lended the released 2003 exams for BC and AB. The questions are nice. you need 64 our of 108 points. that is about 59.3% or something. Hey... this is america... what can you expect? :)</p>

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<p>Take the Barron's MC.</p>

<p>And then take the Released MC.</p>

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<p>is it just me, or is calc really really easy, like there are only like 10 things to know! I was supposed to self study all year, but procrastinated until this weekend. I have been going through pr, arco, barrons and cliff notes and am finding the stuff pretty simple. I have like 5 more chapters do go through, but i downloaded some free response q's off of collegeboard and i glanced through the pr practice exams and could answer a lot of questions correctly. am i underestimating the difficulty of the exam?</p>

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<p>What about the TI89 Titanium. I realized that just knowing how to use it very well could get me a bunch of points on the calc-enabled section.</p>

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<p>bc will be a grand waste of three hours. its the easiest 5 ive got this year next to psych and eng. lang....</p>

<p>now chemistry will be a FUN exam</p>

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<p>Thanks for shaking my confidence again...like you have subtly been doing for the past two years. I congratulate you in advance on getting all your 5's and accomplishing just about anything and everything I've attempted and failed at. Yeah, I probably wont be able to salvage the Chem exam. A 4 at best. A 5, if I'm really lucky. You're better than I am at math, too. I was just provoking you... W/e. What difference does it make?</p>

<p>Please don't choose MIT. It'll be such an inconvenience for me to avoid the Kendall/MIT T-station every day. Do your undergrad in CA, and your grad work back East. I'll do the reciprocal of that. We'll never, ever run into each other. It's a fool-proof plan.</p>

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<p>yeah but still since youve chosen harvard...and if i choose MIT...something good will come out of it. scenario #1:</p>

<p>we both take putnam...both get perfect scores...start MIT/harvard math battles. like the math teams will go over and pull pranks and stuff. thatd be tight...then you guys could go to MIT prefrosh and distribute some harvard math stuff but then we'd go and paint all your whiteboards and chalkboards in the night so no more math can be taught. lol</p>

<p>but yeah alonso's right...really...whats it matter? its like the two largest carnivores in a pack arguing over who can catch the most prey when they both eat more than any of the pack. you can read and comprehend the hell off my ass and in math...it all depends on the day. but chem IS going to be a hard exam. english will not be hard but thats just because the writing section is heavy and its what im better at. here is the grading for eng. lang:</p>

<p>MC score (after deductions) + (3.3333*Combined essay score). usually has to be greater than 105-108 for a 5. if i get averages of 8 on the essays, its easy work on the mc to get a 5...but you never know about time restraints and how theyll work on you.</p>

<p>and its pretty much for sure...unless i feel like taking out loans for the rest of my life...its berkeley math/molecular biology/ecology and berkeley graduate cell bio.</p>

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<p>whoops, sorry CC fundamentalists...i didnt mean to "steal" the thread. just a bit of a digression, that's all.</p>

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<p>and besides...about studying- we can both agree that high school has stimulated our minds to the very smallest extent and that on the graph that plots studying time versus school years, the four years of HS interval will be a local mininum...maybe absolute minimum. we study...but for different things...ill bet 100 bucks i spent more time studying for the english exam...but ill bet you spent more time studying for bio. besides...a biologist/mathematician/spanish speaker can hardly be compared to a philosopher/writer/mathematician. que tal? no mucho, uhhh disadvantages of monotheism...not my area.</p>

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<p>modestmouse: what were the cutoffs for the other scores?</p>