August and the school year is about to start! As I did last year, this year my weekly posts will point you to previous posts on topics that will be coming up a week or two later. I try to stay a little ahead of you so you’ll have time to read them and incorporate…
In this post we look at another part of the AP Calculus BC exam. Good Question 15 discussed the unusual units in 2018 BC 2(a). In this post we look at 2018 BC 2(b) where units help us find the correct integral to answer the question. How do you answer a question of a type…
My choices for the Good Question series are somewhat eclectic. Some are chosen because they are good, some because they are bad, some because I learned something from them, some because they can be extended, and some because they can illustrate some point of mathematics. This question and the next, Good Question 16, are in…
The annual AP Calculus Panel Discussion at the NCTM Annual meeting was held on Saturday April 28, 2018. The principal speaker was Stephen Davis, the chief reader for calculus. Stephen has made his slides available for anyone who is interested. The slides are here http://www.ncaapmt.org/archive/crTalks/nctm-apr2018-notes.pdf . The items highlighted in blue are the ones Stephen discussed in…
The AP Calculus AB and BC exams are scheduled for Tuesday May 15, 2018 at 08:00 local time. That’s about 5 weeks away. I’ve posted all my review notes, finishing well ahead of time so, if you find something useful in them, you’ll have time to incorporate it into your review. I hope you find them…
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…
