The new Course and Exam Description for AP Calculus AB & BC (CED 2019) effective for the coming school year has been published and is available electronically at the course homepages. The direct link is https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-calculus-ab-bc-course-and-exam-description-0.pdf?course=ap-calculus-ab This document is for both AB and BC courses. There will be no change in the exam style and…
Here are the links to the various review post for this year. Tuesday February 27 – AP Exam Review Friday, March 2 – Resources for reviewing Tuesday March 6 – Type 1 questions – Rate and accumulation questions Friday March 9 – Type 2 questions – Linear motion problems Tuesday March 13 – Type 3…
Why “scaling” is necessary No teacher can make two tests on the same topics equal in difficulty. No two teachers, even if they collaborate, can make two tests on the same topic equal in difficulty. No two teachers in different schools, districts, or states can make two tests on the same subject equal in difficulty.…
I got to thinking about grading the other day after seeing a question on Facebook. We’ll get to that question in a minute, but first I want to try to outline a grading scheme I used towards the end of my teaching career. It is based on how free-response question on AP Calculus exams are…
So, Tuesday is the day. My usual suggestion for Monday is to get the kids both relaxed and psyched. They know it by now; not much more you can pour into their heads. So, not last minute advice or hints. Good Luck and best wishes. Looking ahead – May: the new Course and Exam Description for…
The last BC question on the exams usually concerns sequences and series. The question usually asks students to write a Taylor or Maclaurin series and to answer questions about it and its interval of convergence, or about a related series found by differentiating or integrating. The topics may appear in other free-response questions and in…
Ideally, as with parametric and vector functions, polar curves should be introduced and covered thoroughly in a pre-calculus course. Questions on the BC exams have been concerned with calculus ideas related to polar curves. Students have not been asked to know the names of the various curves (rose curves, limaçons, etc.). The graphs are usually…
The parametric/vector equation questions only concern motion in a plane. In the plane, the position of a moving object as a function of time, t, can be specified by a pair of parametric equations or the equivalent vector . The path is the curve traced by the parametric equations or the tips of the position vector. . The velocity of the movement…
Any topic in the Course and Exam Description may be the subject of a free-response or multiple-choice question. There are topics that are not asked often enough to be classified as a type of their own. The two topics listed here have been the subject of full free-response questions or major parts of them. Other…
Differential equations are tested every year. The actual solving of the differential equation is usually the main part of the problem, but it is accompanied by a related question such as a slope field or a tangent line approximation. BC students may also be asked to approximate using Euler’s Method. Large parts of the BC…
Before we look at the table and Riemann sum problem take a look at this: A Google Employee has calculated to over a trillion decimal places, To be exact 31,425925,535,897 places…Hum, where have I seen those digits before? And it only took took 25 virtual machines 121 days to do it. On to Riemann sums…
