Part I

Using This Book to Improve Your AP Score

•    Preview: Your Knowledge, Your Expectations

•    Your Guide to Using This Book

•    How to Begin

PREVIEW: YOUR KNOWLEDGE, YOUR EXPECTATIONS

Your route to a high score on the AP Calculus Exam depends a lot on how you plan to use this book. Start thinking about your plan by responding to the following questions.

1.    Rate your level of confidence about your knowledge of the content tested by the AP Calculus Exam:

A. Very confident—I know it all

B. I’m pretty confident, but there are topics for which I could use help

C. Not confident—I need quite a bit of support

D. I’m not sure

2.    If you have a goal score in mind, circle your goal score for the AP Calculus Exam:

3.    What do you expect to learn from this book? Circle all that apply to you.

A. A general overview of the test and what to expect

B. Strategies for how to approach the test

C. The content tested by this exam

D. I’m not sure yet

YOUR GUIDE TO USING THIS BOOK

This book is organized to provide as much—or as little—support as you need, so you can use this book in whatever way will be most helpful for improving your score on the AP Calculus Exam.

• The remainder of Part One will provide guidance on how to use this book and help you determine your strengths and weaknesses.
• Part Two of this book will
  • provide information about the structure, scoring, and content of the AP Calculus Exam.
  • help you to make a study plan.
  • point you towards additional resources.
• Part Three of this book will explore various strategies:
  • how to attack multiple choice questions
  • how to write a high scoring free-response answer
  • how to manage your time to maximize the number of points available to you
• Part Four of this book covers the content you need for your exam.
• Part Five of this book contains practice tests.

You may choose to use some parts of this book over others, or you may work through the entire book. This will depend on your needs and how much time you have. Let’s now look how to make this determination.

HOW TO BEGIN

1.    Take a Test

Before you can decide how to use this book, you need to take a practice test. Doing so will give you insight into your strengths and weaknesses, and the test will also help you make an effective study plan. If you’re feeling test-phobic, remind yourself that a practice test is a tool for diagnosing yourself—it’s not how well you do that matters but how you use information gleaned from your performance to guide your preparation.

So, before you read further, take the AP Calcuclus AB Practice Test 1 starting at this page of this book or take the AP Calculus BC Practice Test 1 starting on this page. Be sure to do so in one sitting, following the instructions that appear before the test.

2.    Check Your Answers

Using the answer key on this page (for Calculus AB) or this page (for Calculus BC), count how many multiple choice questions you got right and how many you missed. Don’t worry about the explanations for now, and don’t worry about why you missed questions. We’ll get to that soon.

3.    Reflect on the Test

After you take your first test, respond to the following questions:

• How much time did you spend on the multiple choice questions?
• How much time did you spend on each free response question?
• How many multiple choice questions did you miss?
• Do you feel you had the knowledge to address the subject matter of the essays?
• Do you feel you wrote well organized, thoughtful essays?
• Circle the content areas that were most challenging for you and draw a line through the ones in which you felt confident/did well.
  • Functions, Graphs, and Limits
  • Differential Calculus
  • Integral Calculus
  • Polynomial Approximations and Series (for BC Calculus Students)
  • Applications of Derivatives
  • Applications of Integrals

4.    Read Part Two and Complete the Self-Evaluation

As discussed in the Goals section above, Part Two will provide information on how the test is structured and scored. It will also set out areas of content that are tested.

As you read Part Two, re-evaluate your answers to the questions above. At the end of Part Two, you will revisit and refine the questions you answer above. You will then be able to make a study plan, based on your needs and time available, that will allow you to use this book most effectively.

5.    Engage with Parts Three and Four as Needed

Notice the word engage. You’ll get more out of this book if you use it intentionally than if you read it passively, hoping for an improved score through osmosis.

Strategy chapters will help you think about your approach to the question types on this exam. Part Three will open with a reminder to think about how you approach questions now and then close with a reflection section asking you to think about how/whether you will change your approach in the future.

Content chapters are designed to provide a review of the content tested on the AP Calculus Exam, including the level of detail you need to know and how the content is tested. You will have the opportunity to assess your mastery of the content of each chapter through test-appropriate questions and a reflection section.

6.    Take Test 2 and Assess Your Performance

Once you feel you have developed the strategies you need and gained the knowledge you lacked, you should take Test 2. You should do so in one sitting, following the instructions at the beginning of the test.

When you are done, check your answers to the multiple choice sections. See if a teacher will read your essays and provide feedback.

Once you have taken the test, reflect on what areas you still need to work on, and revisit the chapters in this book that address those topics. Through this type of reflection and engagement, you will continue to improve.

7.    Keep Working

After you have revisited certain chapters in this book, continue the process of testing, reflection, and engaging with the other practice tests in this book. Each time, consider what additional work you need to do and how you will change your strategic approach to different parts of the test.

As discussed in Part Two below, there are other resources available to you, including a wealth of information on AP Central. You can continue to explore areas that can stand to improve and engage in those areas right up to the day of the test.