It will soon be time to start reviewing for the AP Calculus Exams. So, it’s time to start planning your review. For the next weeks through the beginning of April I will be posting notes for reviewing. There are not new; versions have been posted for the last few years and these are only slightly revised and updated. A schedule for the dates of the posts appears at the end of this post. My posts are intentionally scheduled before you will probably be needing them, so you can plan ahead. Most people start reviewing around the beginning or middle of April.

Exams for AP Calculus are scheduled for Tuesday May 14, 2019 at 08:00 local time.

Ideas for reviewing for the AP Exam

Part of the purpose of reviewing for the AP calculus exams is to refresh your students’ memory on all the great things you’ve taught them during the rear. The other purpose is to inform them about the format of the exam, the style of the questions, the way they should present their answer, and how the exam is graded and scored.

Using AP questions all year is a good way to accomplish some of this. Look through the released multiple-choice exams and pick questions related to whatever you are doing at the moment. Free-response questions are a little trickier since the parts of the questions come from different units. These may be adapted or used in part.

At the end of the year I suggest you review the free-response questions by type – table questions, differential equations, area/volume, rate/accumulation, graph, etc. More detailed notes on what students needed to know about each of the ten types will be the topic of future posts. For a list of the types see the posting schedule at the end of this post. Plan to spend a few days doing a selection of questions of one type so that student can see how that type question can be used to test a variety of topics. Then go onto the next type. Many teachers keep a collection of past free-response questions filed by type rather than year. This makes it easy to study them by type.

Student Goals

During the exam review period the students’ goal is to MAKE MISTAKES!  This is how you and they can know what they don’t know and learn or relearn it. Encourage mistakes. 

Simulated Exam

Plan to give a simulated (mock) exam. Each year the College Board makes a full exam available. The exams for 1998, 2003, 2008, and 2012 are available at AP Central  and the secure 2013 – 2017 exams are available through your audit website. If possible, find a time when your students can take an entire exam in one sitting (3.25 hours). Teachers often do this on a weekend day or in the evening. This will give your students a feel for what it is like to work calculus problems under test conditions. If you cannot get 3.25 hours to do this give the sections in class using the prescribed time. Some teachers schedule several simulated exams. Of course, you need to correct them and go over the most common mistakes.

Be aware that all the exams (yes, including the secure exams unfortunately) are avail online. Students can find them easily. For suggestions on how to handle this see Practice Exams – A Modest Proposal. 

Explain the scoring

There are 108 points available on the exam; each half (free-response and multiple-choice) is worth the same – 54 points. The number of points required for each score is set after the exams are graded.

For the AB exam, the minimum points required for each score out of 108 point are, very approximately:

• for a 5 – 69 points,
• for a 4 – 52 points,
• for a 3 – 40 points,
• for a 2 – 28 points.

The numbers are similar for the BC exams are again very approximately:

• for a 5 – 68 points,
• for a 4 – 58 points,
• for a 3 – 42 points,
• for a 2 – 34 points.

The actual numbers are not what is important. What is important is that students to know is that they can omit or get wrong many questions and still earn a good score. Students may not be used to this (since they skip or get so few questions wrong on your tests!). They should not panic or feel they are doing poorly if they miss a number of questions. If they understand and accept this in advance they will calm down and do better on the exams. Help them understand they should gather as many points as they can, and not be too concerned if they cannot get them all. Doing only the first 2 parts of a free-response question will probably put them at the mean for that question. Remind them not to spend time on something that’s not working out, or that they don’t feel they know how to do.

Directions

Print a copy of the directions for both parts of the exam and go over them with your students. Especially, for the free-response questions explain the need to show their work, explain that they do not have to simplify arithmetic or algebraic expressions, and explain the three-decimal place consideration. Be sure they know what is expected of them.The directions are here: AB Directions and BC Directions. Yes, this is boiler plate stuff, but take a few minutes to go over it with your students. They should not have to see the directions for the first time on the day of the exam. Emphasize  the need to clearly show their work and justify their answers, and the three-decimal accuracy rule. This rule and lots of other information is explained in detail in this article: How, not only to survive, but to prevail. Copy this article for you students!

Schedule of future posts for reviewing for the 2019 Exams

Exams for AP Calculus are Tuesday May 14, 2019 at 08:00 local time

• Tuesday February 26, 2019 – Resources for reviewing
• Tuesday March 5, 2019 – Type 1 questions – Rate and accumulation questions
• Friday March 8, 2019 – Type 2 questions – Linear motion problems
• Tuesday March 12, 2019 – Type 3 questions – Graph analysis problems
• Friday 15, 2019 – Type 4 questions – Area and volume problems
• Tuesday Match 19, 2019 –  Type 5 questions – Table and Riemann sum questions
• Friday March 22, 2019 – Type 6 questions – Differential equation questions
• Tuesday March 26, 2019 – Type 7 questions – miscellaneous
• Friday March 29, 2019 – Type 8 questions – Parametric and vector questions (BC topic)
• Tuesday April 1, 2019 – Type 9 questions – Polar equations
• Friday April 5 – Type 10 questions – Sequences and Series

Revised for 2019