<p>Seriously. How can ~60% be equivalent to a college "A". I mean, I get a 5, I momentarily think I'm ready to start taking more advanced math, but then I realize that for all I know I could've gotten a "failing" percentage. </p>
<p>Is the Calc BC test really that hard compared to college Calc I and II?</p>
<p>Probably not. However, several of the AP tests are curved that hard. It’s one reason why AP has lost a lot of credibility.</p>
<p>Dang. That’s not good for future math prospects o_o</p>
<p>Then again, getting a 5 means pretty much a Pass in a Pass/Fail class. Where are you going to school?</p>
<p>UVM. What bothers me is that I know someone who had a 5 on BC, an ‘A’ in the same HS class I was in (albeit a year before me), and wound up with a C+ in Calc III at UVM.</p>
<p>Awesome! About UVM…</p>
<p>I’m not surprised. If normal HS classes are 25% as hard as Calc 3, APs would be about 50-65% the difficulty of the UVM course. Not to mention, it’s more advanced. So it really makes sense, unless your friend is a math genius. The more advanced the course, the more difficult it will be (for most people). My grandfather is literally a math genius (I once tested him to check, and gave him 50 advanced math problems and he finished them in about 6 and a half minutes) and he’s related to me a million times how he received a D in his first college math course. It really is a change of scene. So try to prepare yourself, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The AP class is pretty good prep for whats to come. :)</p>
<p>Haha, sweet. I think the biggest transition is probably the amount of hand-holding. In AP calculus, we had 90 minutes a day, covered everything (very) slowly (we didn’t finish the AP syllabus – the prep books had to fill me in on those topics), and basically moved at the pace of the dullest students in the class. Most HW sets were easy except “labs” which were past AP questions, which we could have 3-4 days to work on collaboratively. </p>
<p>I’m expecting college math to involve a lot less hand-holding and a lot more independent reading and involve a lot of the “test prep” skills that people gain in training for the SAT. Do lots of practice problems and really develop problem solving skills in that subject. I fully expect to put in a lot of hours even if I “understand” the material…so hopefully I won’t end up like the kid I knew. (He wasn’t a genius and apparently didn’t do his homework at all, which while not graded, hurt his test scores since the tests are based on homework)</p>
<p>Yeah, that sounds like the gist of it to me. Another aspect might be the stress of college life/being independent, but for many kids, independence is a familiar thing.</p>
<p>When you aren’t forced to show up to class, and can sit in bed and watch horror movies all day, why bother with calculus…:D</p>
<p>wow, this post has made me feel less accomplished for my 5 on the bc exam</p>
<p>anyway, if this is true, colleges will have no choice but to require students to take calc II or maybe even calc I</p>
<p>No, because for some schools the guarantee of getting college credit makes them more appealing. Also, as I said earlier, in Pass/Fail exam, most 5s on the AP test would be considered passes.</p>
<p>I think the curve could be tightened slightly. 43.5% of BC takers got a 5 last year.</p>
<p>Ooh. Ouch…I mean, obviously there aren’t that many test takers compared to, say…APUSH, but still! That really invalidates the purpose of AP, no?</p>
<p>Well, the AP’s real purpose is to determine if a student has enough knowledge to recieve credit for a given subject. But still, the test can’t differentiate between “excellent” and “competent” calculus students, which sort of makes it not all that valuable in gauging mastery.</p>
<p>Actually im pretty sure a 5 is a 70%, not a 60%, which is reasonable I guess. 50% is a 4 or something like that.</p>
<p>BUT take into consideration that math is an analytical thing. I am pretty sure that MOST, IF NOT ALL of you have gotten an answer wrong because of a silly mistake i.e. simple addition or Algebra. Think about whether or not your teacher marked it completely wrong or gave you most credit because of the process - which was right.</p>
<p>Math is a case where getting the right answer isn’t black and white, it has a huge gray area because of the computations that need to be done. On 50% of the test it is Multiple Choice - its either right or wrong. If you did every process pretty much correct and mistyped something into your calculator or couldn’t read your own handwriting (like me who thinks his 4s are 9s >_<), you could still get it wrong. I am a firm believer that the work and the steps are what is important, it isn’t the answer. </p>
<p>Grading mathematics, especially on a point scale is hard. There are so many points of view that you could take and it varies by so much. I and many of my classmates have gotten so many points gained because of debates with our math teachers over how much something should be worth. </p>
<p>It seems to me that Collegeboard just wants to be as generous as possible - though I agree that it could be done a LITTLE better to make getting a 5 harder, but they shouldn’t go back to the old scale. I have seen the old grading scale - it is MUCH harder to get a 5. I think a high 3 then is the same as a low 5 now.</p>
<p>
What bothers me is that I got a 3 in BC Calc and an A in Calc III. :p</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think this misses the point.</p>
<p>Consider that there are two types of BC test takers, in general:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Those that take BC the year after taking AB. Usually, students that are taking it in this order are doing so because their high schools make AB a prerequisite for BC. These students have already learned all the AB material, and get to spend a substantial amount of time on BC material in comparison to their peers. In addition, since most of these students were eligible to take AB as juniors (or younger), we would expect that they would have a disproportionately higher aptitude towards mathematics than the norm. We would expect that these students would be able to reach a certain pre-set standard more often than most.</p></li>
<li><p>Those that take BC as an alternative to AB. Usually, students doing it in this order are at schools where AB vs. BC is an either/or type system. The students who select BC are typically going to be the more advanced students of the students eligible to take AP Calculus. We would again expect that these students would be able to reach a certain pre-set standard more often than most.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In other words, your AP Calc BC test-taking group is primarily two groups of students who have some kind of advantage: either they are among the brightest in their peer group and/or they have additional time to learn these particular topics.</p>
<p>So long as the standard for achieving a 5 on the AP Calc BC is based on attaining a certain level of mastery, I would expect that the percentage of 5’s on the BC test would remain high, not because the results are artificial, but because of the nature of the group taking the test.</p>
<p>As far as the grades in following classes, I think a lot of high school students really don’t understand that college is simply a very different animal than high school is. For one thing, when I was first starting college, there was an expectation that your high school GPA would be about 0.6 higher than your college GPA. I would venture that grades today are inflated compared to years ago (in general) and most high schools do a lot more hand-holding than they have in the past. While colleges have started to do some of the same, I would guess that the expected GPA differential is higher today than even 15 years ago.</p>
<p>When you take a look at factors such as those, and when you compare that to the freedom that many young people experience on a college campus for the first time (I know that I personally did a number of things my first semester of college that were responsible for my own personal 0.8 drop in my GPA), and how students have to adjust to holding themselves accountable, and a 5 on the BC test and a C+ in Calc III aren’t all that incompatible.</p>
<p>They should really start giving out 6 and 7s (or higher) in addition to the 1-5 scale on all the ap tests. maybe a 6 on calc bc would be ~80% and a 7 would be ~90%. I do agree that there is a huge difference in level of mastery between a low and high 5.</p>
<p>@zhonginator: That might work for a few years, but the curve would probably start inching up again.</p>
<h2>From the collegeboard site:</h2>
<p>5 Extremely well qualified*
4 Well qualified*
3 Qualified*
2 Possibly qualified*
1 No recommendation**</p>
<p>*Qualified to receive college credit or advanced placement</p>
<h2>**No recommendation to receive college credit or advanced placement</h2>
<p>What would a 6 or 7 be? Super duper well qualified and OMG AWSUM STUDENT well qualified?</p>
<p>I really want to be an OMG AWSUM STUDENT. So badly.</p>