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…
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…
Given equations that define a region in the plane students are asked to find its area, the volume of the solid formed when the region is revolved around a line, and/or the region is used as a base of a solid with regular cross-sections. This standard application of the integral has appeared every year since…
The long name is “Here’s the graph of the derivative, tell me things about the function.” Students are given either the equation of the derivative of a function or a graph identified as the derivative of a function but no equation is given. It is not expected that students will write the equation (although this…
We continue the discussion of the various type questions on the AP Calculus Exams with linear motion questions. “A particle (or car, or bicycle) moves on a number line ….” These questions may give the position equation, the velocity equation (most often), or the acceleration equation of something that is moving, along with an initial…
The Free-response Questions There are ten general categories of AP Calculus free-response questions. As I’ve done in part years, I will consider each individually over the next few weeks posting on Tuesdays and Fridays. These will be updates of last year’s posts. Here is the list of the types and the schedule: Tuesday March 5, 2019…
This is a list of links to some resources for reviewing. How, Not Only to Survive, but to Prevail… – Notes and advice for your students. You may copy and duplicate this for your class. Calculator Use on the AP Exams – hints and instruction. Ted Gott’s Free-response Index – an excel spreadsheet searchable by…
