Why does Calc BC have a higher average score than AB?

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

<p>The average score for AB is 3.01 while the average score for BC is 3.7. Why is it higher when BC is suppose to be harder?</p>

<p>Also I’m taking AB right now and I was thinking about study BC after school with my teacher. Are there a risks in doing this? what should I do?</p>

2

<p>BC is harder because it’s AB + more topics. However think about it. Those who are going to take BC are probably the top 50% of the people who take AB therefore they are going to have a higher average without the lower portion not taking it.</p>

3

<p>There are at least two factors contributing to this average:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Some schools offer AB followed by BC. In this case, BC students are students who took AB as juniors (or earlier). Younger math students in the same subject area tend to be more gifted in the area, so typically a smarter subset of the AB population goes on to take the BC test, whereas the rest do not. Further, because BC doesn’t add many more topics than AB does, some schools will literally spend a good chunk of the BC year reviewing at these schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Other schools offer students the option of taking either AB or BC. When students are given the choice, typically only the higher-achieving students will self-select themselves into the BC class. Since the AB topics on the BC exam are of comparable difficulty levels, BC students will typically do better on those topics than their AB counterparts.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>As far as the studying with your teacher after school piece, one of the things to think about is when you’ll finish the AB topics, as you’ll need to finish most of them before you get into some of the BC topics (i.e. you really need to be comfortable with basic integration and u-subsitution before getting into integration using partial fractions).</p>

4

<p>Generally, students only choose to take Calc BC, if they either took AB and did well, or are skipping it, knowing they are high-scoring, high-achieving students. Very few people take Calc BC just to take another AP Class or Test. Those who take it are generally very serious about doing well on it, in my opinion.</p>