<p>I’m just curious, why does AP Calculus (AB) have half the pass rate Calc (BC) does? Shouldn’t AB have a higher pass rate considering it’s less content than BC?</p>
<p>Smarter students</p>
<p>You tend not to find stupid people taking Calculus, or at least a lot of them.</p>
<p>BC reviews content from AB, and only those who already passed AB take it.</p>
<p>^Uh, definitely not true. Seldom do I see students who have taken AB take BC. Meaning, many students go straight to Calc BC.</p>
<p>Really? Well, in my experience that doesn’t happen much. Different environments, I guess.</p>
<p>I gather from reading threads here on CC that in some parts of country it may be common practice for HSs to offer calc BC as a course that includes the calc AB material early in the year and proceeds at an accelerated pace, while calc AB as a year-long course is taken only by less mathematically precocious students who won’t get to BC material while in HS. </p>
<p>There is one school in our area that recently started offering a version of this, calling the course ‘ABC’. But they also offer the traditional AB and BC that follow one another and cover distinct non-overlapping parts of the coursework. At our city’s schools the only option is to take AB first and then BC, unless you want to self-study the AB material and then take BC. Our BC course jumps right into the middle of calc book.</p>
<p>The students self-select. Those who think they will do poorly on BC (but might pass on AB) tend to take AB. </p>
<p>The ones who choose to take BC instead–the more difficult calculus exam–generally have better grasp of the material.</p>
<p>catch23 seems to be talking about kids who take a year-long course that includes all the AB AND BC material and then choose which test to take based on how competent they feel. That is not the way things happen in our school district where you take AB for a year, and then the AB test. Then you take BC for a year followed by the BC test. Though D did have a girl in her class who skipped the test after AB for financial reasons, figuring that taking the BC test after completing both courses at the end of 2 years was good enough for the way most colleges offer AP credit. And she was right. But most kids in our school system taking AB as juniors or below take the AB test in any case, for experience to get that under their belt.</p>
<p>^That’s interesting. At my school they don’t have that option.</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying.</p>
<p>My school describes AP Calculus AB as an advanced math course designed for students who aren’t pursuing a STEM career while AP Calculus BC is designed for students who are pursuing a STEM career or major - so I took that to mean that AB kids, while typically intelligent, usually aren’t “mathy” - while BC kids are, so while the BC exam is harder, it has a higher pass rate because a lot of the students taking it are much more math oriented.</p>
<p>Well, the STEM career part is true, but at my school, only AB is offered, therefore all the STEM kids are taking it anyways, (But teacher is a really good teacher, one year 63/64 of his students got a 5 and the one that didn’t still got a 4 on the AP Exam) Anyways, for BC you have to do an independent study, but it’s a modified version of that, because he has students who self study for it meet in his class at lunch once every 2 weeks and gives them stuff to do, and he stays after school 3 days a week to help his students that he has for Pre-Calc and Calculus, so they often will come and ask him for help there. Point being, a lot of STEM kids will take AB because that’s all there school offers to them, or the school requires AB to be taken before BC (Although a lot of STEM kids may decide to self study for BC while in AB)</p>
<p>But reading all of the responses, I think the reason for the higher pass rate is not one thing in particular, but a combination of things. Such as:
Smarter students who want to pursue STEM careers take BC, if the school allows you to go from Pre-Calc to (BC)</p>
<p>A lot of students who take the BC exam have been studying Calculus for 2 years, as apposed to most AB Students who have been studying Calculus for only 1 year.</p>
<p>A lot of kids who take AB who are math oriented, may end up studying for BC, and a lot of students who don’t feel confident about how they will do on the BC exam if they are taking Calc BC take the AB exam.</p>
<p>At my school, you can only take AP Calc BC after taking AP Calc AB… same at my best friend’s school and probably other schools around here.</p>
<p>That’s what it is like at my school to, except BC is an independent study but the teacher will meet with the class every couple of weeks to take tests and I’m pretty sure that it will show as a class to colleges, I’m not sure though. But the BC pass rate at my school is way lower than the AB Pass rate (Same teacher, but teacher has like 90% of his students get a 5 on AB and only like 55% get a 5 for BC) But there isn’t enough people to have a BC class, only like 11 people take BC each year. But teacher is very dedicated so he does as much as he can on his own time for no pay.</p>