The reason you review is TO MAKE MISTAKES!

When you’re reviewing for the AP Calculus exams your goal is to make mistakes. Why make mistakes? Easy: to find out what you’re doing wrong so you can fix it. And to find out what you don’t know so you can learn it.  

Your teacher will assign free-response questions, FRQs, from real AP Calculus exams from past years. Give yourself about 15 minutes and try to answer the question. (Fifteen minutes is about the time you have for each FRQ on the exam.) After fifteen minutes, stop. Check your work.

The questions, answers, solutions, and most importantly the scoring guidelines for FRQs are all online here for AB, and here for BC. Each FRQ is worth nine points. The scoring guidelines will show you what must be on your paper to earn each point.

Now you can copy the absolutely perfect answer for your FRQs and hand it in to your teacher. This won’t impress or fool your teacher because he or she has the guidelines too. More importantly this won’t help you. When reviewing mistakes are good. Study your mistakes and learn from them.

• If you made a simple arithmetic or algebra mistake, learn to be more careful. One very common mistake is simplifying your answer incorrectly. Remember, you do not have to simplify numerical or algebraic answers. If you write “ 1 + 1 “ and the correct answer is 2, the “ 1 + 1 ” earns the point. But if you simplified it to 3, you lose the point you already earned. (The standards show simplified answers, so the readers will know what they are for (foolish?) students who chose to simplify.) simplifying also wastes time.
• If you’re unsure how to write justifications, explanations, and other written answers, use the scoring guidelines as samples or templates. Learn to say what you need to say. Don’t say too much. You will not earn full credit for the correct answer and correct work if the question asks for a justification, and you don’t write one.
• If you really don’t know how to answer a question you’ve made an important mistake. This is the thing you need to work on until you understand the concept or method. This requires more than just reading the solution on the guideline. Go back to your notes, ask your friends, ask your teacher, find out what you’re missing and learn it. Look at similar questions from other exams.
•  For multiple-choice questions only the answers are available. Nevertheless, be sure you understand your mistakes.

There are 7 types of questions on the AB exam and an additional 3 on the BC exam. These are not the same as the ten units you’ve been studying, because AP exam questions often have parts from more than one unit. On March 5, I will post links to all the types. The discussion of each type will include a list of what you should know and be able to do for each type along with other hints.           

Now, when you actually take the AP Calculus exam your goal changes. Here you want to earn all the points you can. If you run across something you know you don’t know on the exam, leave it. Go onto something you do know. Don’t waste your time on something you’re not sure of. You can always come back if you have time.

Missteaks our heplfull.