Customer Reviews

Cracking the AP Calculus AB & BC Exam, 2004-2005 (College Test Prep)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have used this book for extra preparation for AP Calculus AB exam, besides taking the course at school.

I took my exam a few days ago (and I did very well), and I must say the book covered everything that was tested. A weakness, however, would be that it is hard to determine which of the chapters refer to AB and which - to BC (yet this is not impossible, since the book contains a list of topics where this info is indicated).

The explications of topics are easy to follow and understand. Also, if you use this book, you'll sure have enough practice exercises for each and every topic, as well as 3 Practice AB Calc tests (full size) and 2 BC Calc tests.

My school only offers AP Calculus AB as a class, but I wanted to take the BC test, so I decided to study up for it on my own. I tried using my school textbook, but its explanations of concepts were shoddy at best, and sometimes not related to anything on the AP test. I bought this book, and I can say with confidence that I would not have had a prayer on the AP test without it. In addition to providing invaluable test-taking strategies for both the multiple-choice and free-response sections, it goes over everything on the AP test, with special attention paid to the concepts that are most likely to appear on the exam. Its explanations are clear and concise, with numerous practice problems to help you make sure you've "gotten" a particular idea. The practice tests helped immensely, as well, and they were very realistic and quite similar to the real exam. One caveat: the book doesn't go over velocity and acceleration vectors, so make sure you learn these, too, for BC Calc, but that's not nearly enough to detract from the immense help that this book provides. I'm going to recommend that my school replace the Calculus textbooks with this book (or at least recommend that every student buy it).

This book is concise and easy to understand. It's not quite as good as the Princeton Review's AP Physics B&C, but it's pretty darn close. I'd recomend it to anyone who is serious about doing well in Calculus and on the AP.

I got 5 on the exam and I found that the difficulty of the actual exam is similar with that of Princeton's practice tests.
In free-response questions, there would be some questions that are harder than Princeton's.
I also used barrons, but I found Barrons' questions were
excessively tough.

This book is about all you'll need for the AB or BC Calc Test. As long as you're committed, and can do up to a chapter a day, you can easily kill this test. When i walked out, I knew i had gotten a 5. Its not that hard w/ this book.

I took AP Calculus AB and this book is an amazing review for it, it is very simple and easy to understand and there are so many practice problems to try. This book is great for review of the multiple choice section, the free response questions in this book were really easy. What I did I joined at www.apcentral.collegeboard.com and I used actual AP Calculus Free Response questions to practice all the way up to the test. Using this book and those free response questions I think it definitely helped me pass the AP Exam. I would definitely recommend this book to people who are serious about passing their AP Calculus exam.

Alright, so I screwed up precalculus pretty badly, and only managed to do well near the end of that year. In the beginning of calculus, I was so lost that I did not understand a single thing in calculus. It didn't help when I was overloaded with homework.

I knew I needed a solution, and I saw all the other students buy Barrons. However, upon looking at it, it looked freaky hard and I had a feeling I should get another book. Therefore, I went and got myself this book. It worked miracles for me from the very moment I started reading it, because it made calculus look so easy.

I have absolutely no regrets buying this book, or if I do have one, it is that I didn't buy this book earlier. I see all my other classmates suffering while I was enjoying reading my Calculus book. In fact, I brought this book to every calculus class and it even replaced my textbook. I didn't even bother paying attention to my teacher anymore (although this is highly not recommended), and after a while I started to even ace my calculus tests. My friends called it my Math Bible and it was very true.

Inevitably, I took an AB practice exam in January and scored a 5, but then when it came to the BC, I was only able to get a 4 at the most. Again, I looked to the "Calculus Bible" and I worked very hard on it. Obviously with hard work and effort, I ultimately scored a 5 on my BC exam, and ACED the Calculus class (considering my first semester of precalculus was a D+!)

This book is a must buy for all calculus students and I found it more useful than my teacher. However, you MUST buy this book and actually spend a lot of time and dedication on it. I spent numerous hours during the holidays with this one book and in the end I reaped the rewards. If you don't spend enough time on this book, then this is absolutely useless. The poorer you are at Calculus presently, the more time you need to spend on this book to get a 5. Everybody should be able to get a 5 if you spend enough time on this book.

Do NOT buy the Barrons book. After a while I decided to read more of the Barrons and found of confusing and hard. I was only able to get a 3 on the Barrons practice exams and it was ridiculous. Not only does it lower your confidence, it by no means helped my calculus because the concepts were far too hard and were not even tested by the College Board. Don't even bother buying Barrons, and now I have a policy of not even buying a Barrons book for anything based on my analysis of the Barrons calculus book. I also read the Barrons AP English book and it was ridiculously hard, so I only trust Princeton Review when it comes to cracking AP exams. Your life will be a lot easier if you buy this book and you will certainly be geared towards a 5 for the BC exam if you work hard on it.

I am a living proof of the success of this book.

i don't understand my teacher. So, this book is a big help. It teaches like a person is talking to you. However, i would like to see more practice questions where they actually shows the steps. There are many practice questions but they just provide the answers insted of showing the work.

yeah, so it's very good, i didn't have AP calculus at my high school so i picked this book up out of curiosity and it's pretty enjoyable, later i took calculus in college (columbia) and got an a+
highly recommended

Stephen's daughter Amanda says- I found this book two months before the AP Calculus AB exam. It really helped me to review the concepts our class had gone over earlier in the year. It was easy to understand, and I found the step-by-step solutions to be very useful. I ended up scoring a 5 on the AP Calc AB exam. If you are planning on taking the AB exam, I think this book will really help you!