<p>After today, I do wonder if the College Board actually properly enforces its calculus courses. I took the AP exam in Calculus AB today and felt helpless on some parts. Previously, I had looked at some past free-response questions; and quite simply, I couldn’t do them. I couldn’t believe it. Math is my favorite subject, and I greatly understand its concepts. For the last three quarters I’ve retained a 100 average while most of my class was struggling to understand the (inadequate) material. Now, I won’t score a 5 on the exam, and I’ll be lucky to get a 4.</p>
<p>The textbook that my class uses was quite literally published eleven years ago; and even doesn’t cover some necessary concepts for the AB exam (separable differential equations, slope fields, certain volumes). It doesn’t even seem as if the teacher knows that he’s not really covering everything in its entirety and depth. My school has had Calculus AB for a number of years now, but apparently isn’t current with its course curriculum. How is it that this sort of thing happens despite the College Board supposedly keeping up with the realization of its standards?</p>
<p>this goes to show that you can’t rely on your teacher for preparation. 30% of my success on my past AP exams is owed to my teachers. 70% was my own initiative.</p>
<p>this goes to show that you can’t rely on your teacher for preparation. 30% of my success on past AP exams is owed to my teachers. 70% was from taking my own initiative.</p>
<p>The college board did an AP course audit in 2008 and every course with the AP label had to send in a syllabus to be approved by the CB. Your school definitely knows the requirements.</p>
<p>I’ve never been a student that relies on teachers. I do much of my learning practically on my own and Calculus AB was no exception. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn everything…</p>
<p>I’d love to know how my school’s course is inadequate. The main textbook is totally out of date and yet folks are still being taught “all of the material”.</p>
<p>@An0maly: That’s a load of crap. You can’t honestly believe that AP teachers follow whatever syllabus they have had approved. </p>
<p>Along with the above post, I’d never put my fate in the hands of a teacher. I know that many of them are decent teachers and do try, but still a lot of them don’t… and only I can ensure that I have learned or at least exposed myself to all that needs to be covered.</p>
<p>Meh. Whatever. I can’t do anything now and I’m already headed to a really good university. Calculus will show up again, but it will probably be in its rightful entirety next year.</p>
<p>I am proud to say that my AB teacher did an absolute fantastic job in preparing us for the exam. (Actually, when she came into our waiting room before the exam, we all gave her a standing ovation.)</p>
<p>Our school enforces the curriculum through the scores. If many of a teacher’s students start to score poorly on the exams, the administration would be called in to evaluate the situation: Who’s at fault? Is the teacher doing his/her job? and most importantly “How can we fix it?” </p>
<p>Likewise, my school has many AP teachers who are absolutely inadequate at teaching itself, let alone guiding students through a college level course. </p>
<p>In the end, the college-level AP does mimic what it sets out to be; the typical college student relies less on his/her professor and more on him/herself. I can completely understand your frustration with your teacher’s lack of competence, and I’ve been through what you’re going through now. Fortunately, the score is well, just a number. There are more important things in life.</p>
<p>yup, just because you take a calc class or any classroom based ap course doesn’t mean you will be prepared for the exam. Some teachers frankly aren’t that great. Just think about it, has your teacher ever taken an ap exam? Most likely not, unless they are very young. Even if they did take the exam most likely it is outdated.</p>
<p>Here is a good way to see if your teacher is good or not. Answer these questions.</p>
<p>1) has your teacher shown you a past released ap exam for the topic you are preparing for? </p>
<p>2) has your teacher reviewed the topic online from the course description for the exam?</p>
<p>3) Has your teacher reviewed previously released essay questions/free responses?</p>
<p>The more yes to the above questions then the better the teacher is at preparing you. In my opinion its fully worth the money to spend 10-20$ to get a decent review course or prep guide.</p>
<p>@An0maly. Its bogus. The college board is just saying that to make it sound like ap classes are being looked at. If the college board really wanted to make sure their ap classes were top notch they would send auditors to check up on it but they don’t.</p>
<p>Take it easy fellas. I know exactly what you mean by “what a joke the audit is.” I go to an A is for attendance school too. OP was questioning whether his school even knew the curriculum, and the fact is that they do. They obviously don’t follow it, but they do know what it is.</p>
<p>All of those questions have a “no” answer (and I noticed the lack of past exam display as well). However, my calculus teacher this year had only been teaching the AP course of the subject for one year before the current one. The old teacher had gotten pregnant two years ago and left the school (she might not have been spectacular).The only well taught and organized AP courses at my school are U.S. History and European History. Meh. All the more reason to dislike my high school. At least I’m off to a top-notch university next school year.</p>
<p>An0maly’s very much got the right idea, although I would argue that there are also plenty of well-meaning inexperienced teachers who know the overall topics that are supposed to be covered, but not necessarily to the degree to which it should be covered.</p>
<p>For instance, I’m sure that every teacher that has prepared an audit knows they’re supposed to cover the First and Second Fundamental Theorems of Calculus, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to look at graphs of f, with a function g defined as integral(0, x) of f(x) dx and then discuss behavior of the function g. And yet, I’m sure that many students struggle with a question like this the first time they’re faced with it. Sure, it’s a Fundamental Theorem of Calculus question, but it doesn’t look like a lot of the questions of that type presented in textbooks.</p>
<p>And indeed, that’s where teachers who use previous exams and released free-response questions offer their students a distinct advantage over those that don’t.</p>
<p>And yes, there are some teachers who see the audit as a hoop and then teach whatever the heck they want. Shame on them.</p>
<p>Yes I had the same problem, even though I took Calculus at community college, The teachers never used a calculator. When I found out the AP used calculators, I had learn how to do definite integrals and the like on my own. We didn’t cover Diffy Slope fields or Euler’s method in my courses either.
I noticed that AP Calculus do not go over techniques of integration <em>intensively</em>. At college, well, the teacher spent half of the semester on this topic, with trig subs, etc, he even taught us hyperbolic functions.
The only thing I could say is: college > AP in difficulty.</p>
<p>My 1100+ page college calculus textbook (Thomas & Finney, two of the most highly regarded calc textbook authors) has about 5 pages on slope fields (and most of the section concerns Euler’s method). I really have never understood why these were added to the AP calc curriculum. Then again, I don’t particularly like the use of calculators in the curriculum either. Like someone said, at least for now, calculus in college is still taught primarily without them.</p>
<p>Islander, we’re in the same boat. I really wish I had prepared more on my own, but I didn’t realize how bad my teacher actually was until a week or so before the exam. My principle came in to talk to us today about the test to see what can be done better next year, so hopefully the kids next year will benefit from our ideas. No one has passed the ap calc ab exam at my school in 7 years…I’m hoping for a 3 or 4, but who knows…</p>