AP Test panic, talk me down or give advice

[silver]

We've finished all the topics for the AP Calc AB exam and I doing a modified practice exam this week (modified in that I'm splitting it over several days rather than making him do it all at once like the actual exam).

He knows the material. We've been doing the progress checks in AP classroom, and he scores well.

It turns out that solving problems under time pressure is an issue for him. He's done 2 hours of the exam (I have not graded yet, waiting for it to be completed), and he didn't have time to do the 30 no-calculator MCQ (he did 27 of them) nor the 4 no-calculator FRQ (left one section blank for two of the questions--FRQ sections can range from 1-4 points each out of 36 total for this particular section). He may still score well, because it feels like grading is somewhat lenient, but I'm in a panic now that I'm not going to have time to get him ready for the time pressure of the exam. 

So. Talk me down or give me advice of how to help him in the next month.

Edited April 6, 2023 by silver

[Arcadia]

1 hour ago, silver said:

It turns out that solving problems under time pressure is an issue for him.

Is this the first practice exam he is doing? My slow poke gets much faster after the first practice exam because he knows what to expect. Once I even let him read through the past year exam and solutions for one of the AP exams and he was fast enough when he did his first practice exam for that subject.

Does your son depend on his calculator usually since he run out of time on the non-calculator sections?

Pacing is an acquired skill for my slow poke. Coloring the scantron sheet fast and accurate was another acquired skill for both my kids. 

I did remind my kids that they can “doodle” all they want on the exam booklet and that is helpful for my slow poke. My kids are so “respectful” that they thought they have to keep the test booklet in pristine condition. 

He does better on SAT than ACT though because he had a little time to spare on SAT while ACT was stressful time wise. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Arcadia
typo

[silver]

7 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Is this the first practice exam he is doing?

Yes, the first timed practice exam. He's done the progress checks on AP classroom, but I didn't time him on those. So he's seen the types of problems before, but not in a time crunch.

7 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Does your son depend on his calculator usually since he run out of time on the calculator sections?

He's only done the non-calculator sections, and ran out of time on both of them (MCQ and FRQ). He'll be doing the calculator sections today. He does not typically rely on his calculator, so I don't think that's an issue.

7 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Pacing is an acquired skill for my slow poke. Coloring the scantron sheet fast and accurate was another acquired skill for both my kids. 

I'm hoping some practice tests this month will help.

7 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

He does better on SAT than ACT though because he had a little time to spare on SAT while ACT was stressful time wise. 

This is one of several reasons we're leaning toward the SAT, even with the changes to digital.

 

[Arcadia]

13 minutes ago, silver said:

 

He's only done the non-calculator sections, and ran out of time on both of them (MCQ and FRQ). He'll be doing the calculator sections today. He does not typically rely on his calculator, so I don't think that's an issue.

 

This is one of several reasons we're leaning toward the SAT, even with the changes to digital.

My typo. I did meant the non calculator portion. If he doesn’t rely on a calculator, then it is just a matter of getting used to timed exams and coloring the scantron sheet. The SAT math calculator section can be done without a calculator so if he is not dependent on a calculator, that would give him even more time to spare. 

[kokotg]

I'd just have him practice lots of timed questions between now and then. That might be all it takes. And try to take the pressure off the score; I don't know what his goals are, but no one has to see the score if he's not happy with it, and the worst thing that happens is that he needs to take calculus again at some point, this time with a really strong foundation in it. 

[daijobu]

2 hours ago, silver said:

It turns out that solving problems under time pressure is an issue for him. He's done 2 hours of the exam (I have not graded yet, waiting for it to be completed), and he didn't have time to do the 30 no-calculator MCQ (he did 27 of them) nor the 4 no-calculator FRQ (left one section blank for two of the questions--FRQ sections can range from 1-4 points each out of 36 total for this particular section). He may still score well, because it feels like grading is somewhat lenient, but I'm in a panic now that I'm not going to have time to get him ready for the time pressure of the exam. 

So. Talk me down or give me advice of how to help him in the next month.

This may not be as terrible as it seems.  A score of 5 does not equate to 100% or even 90% correct.  It's difficult to pinpoint with certainty, and will require some research, but this quora thread claims 57% correct to earn a 5.    I know the cutoffs are low, but even I'm skeptical of 57%.   Here's another quora thread on the topic.

If you have access to the College Board materials (i.e., you have a syllabus approved and passed the audit), then you should have access to the AP Calculus Teacher Community, basically their online discussion board.  There are several experienced AP calc teachers and graders who can give you some insight.  

[silver]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

I'd just have him practice lots of timed questions between now and then. That might be all it takes. And try to take the pressure off the score; I don't know what his goals are, but no one has to see the score if he's not happy with it, and the worst thing that happens is that he needs to take calculus again at some point, this time with a really strong foundation in it. 

He's hoping to use it for placement for DE math in the fall, and needs a 4 or 5 to do so. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Something that helped my kids was to go through a lot of the released FRQ examples to see what type of response garnered high, medium, and low scores. this gave them a good idea of how exhaustive their responses needed to be.

[gstharr]

To increase speed, all practice sections need to be timed.  Instead of doing a whole test in a sitting, tear out one section of the practice section at a time.  Have him do one section at a time.  At the time limit score what was done, then have him finish the rest of the section of untimed.  then score that completed section.  Do each section this way to identify the section(s) need the most work.   It is lot less intimidating to break up the test. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have no idea if this will work for math or science APs, but for English,  government, and history, I found lists of previous FRQ prompts and made the kids go through them. 

For short response, we did them outloud or as bullet points. 

For essays, I had them write the appropriate thesis statement and the main point of each paragraph. 

In English Lit, we went through almost 50 past prompts for the long essay. I made them list 1-3 books they could use for any of the prompts. I also found a list of the most often cited works and had them mark any they could remember well enough for an essay and any other books read that were of a similar calibre. 

I'm not sure what the STEM equivalents would be. The point of this was to be able to quickly get started on the response, not spend precious time deciding how to respond. 

[Arcadia]

47 minutes ago, Sebastian (a lady) said:

 

I'm not sure what the STEM equivalents would be. The point of this was to be able to quickly get started on the response, not spend precious time deciding how to respond. 

For maths and science AP exams, we went over the scoring guidelines after my kids have completed a past year FRQ for that subject so that my kids learned what the grader is going to be looking for when grading. 
 

e.g. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap22-sg-calculus-ab.pdf

[Sebastian (a lady)]

13 hours ago, Arcadia said:

For maths and science AP exams, we went over the scoring guidelines after my kids have completed a past year FRQ for that subject so that my kids learned what the grader is going to be looking for when grading. 
 

e.g. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap22-sg-calculus-ab.pdf

The scoring guidelines are very helpful. 

[silver]

We've been doing AP classroom's progress checks through the year, which has helped get both of us familiar with the score guidelines for FRQs, but it is always good to go over them.

It looks like the particular practice exam (2018 International Practice Exam) he was doing is a harder one, where a score of 54/108 still earns a 4. So that's a reassurance. We'll continue to practice, go over timing strategies, and I'll try to make sure that he knows not to panic if he doesn't finish.

[SeaConquest]

Sacha is taking the BC test in May and I am panicking with you. OHS chem has taken over our lives, so he is still working through the material from his AoPS class (that finished a month ago). He's watching the AP review videos, but I was thinking about having him use UWorld's question bank (not sure if it's better to finish his AoPS coursework -- he has an extension until June -- or specific test prep, at this point?). Has anyone used UWorld? The APStudents subreddit seems to like it. Is AoPS enough exam prep?

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, SeaConquest said:

Sacha is taking the BC test in May and I am panicking with you. OHS chem has taken over our lives, so he is still working through the material from his AoPS class (that finished a month ago). He's watching the AP review videos, but I was thinking about having him use UWorld's question bank (not sure if it's better to finish his AoPS coursework -- he has an extension until June -- or specific test prep, at this point?). Has anyone used UWorld? The APStudents subreddit seems to like it. Is AoPS enough exam prep?

So aops (if it's still the same format it's used to be four years ago) was not enough for us for BC exam. It's an easy exam for  mathy kid, but you need to know how to use a calculator, and you need familiarity of how they ask questions. I would use AP online resources and question bank from them to prep. You don't need Uworld. My DS says they ask the questions in patterns of some sorts. Apparently predictable. Are you signed up as a teacher online? 

[SeaConquest]

11 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

So aops (if it's still the same format it's used to be four years ago) was not enough for us for BC exam. It's an easy exam for  mathy kid, but you need to know how to use a calculator, and you need familiarity of how they ask questions. I would use AP online resources and question bank from them to prep. You don't need Uworld. My DS says they ask the questions in patterns of some sorts. Apparently predictable. Are you signed up as a teacher online? 

No. I'm not a teacher. He originally got access to the BC class stuff through OHS, but he ended up taking AoPS instead. I can see the AP review videos, but am not sure if we have access to anything else on the AP site.

[SeaConquest]

All I see when I log into AP Classroom are these videos, but I don't know how to access the personal progress check and question bank that they refer to:

[silver]

23 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

All I see when I log into AP Classroom are these videos, but I don't know how to access the personal progress check and question bank that they refer to:

The teacher that he's signed up under would need to assign questions for them to be available. 

You can get FRQ from previous years, along with scoring guidelines here:
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-calculus-bc/exam/past-exam-questions

 

Does anyone know if know if CB would prohibit someone that isn't teaching her son to add him to their AP classroom in order to assign MCQ practice for him?

 

ETA: with regard to calculator knowledge needed, the AP exam says that you can use the calculator to graph functions, find zeros/intersection points, solve a derivative at a point, or solve a definite integral. In the MCQ section, you may need it to find a decimal approximation of a trig function or natural log, but that's easy to do. My son says that there hasn't really been anything beyond those that he's needed to do on a calculator. So, make sure he's familiar with graphing functions and using the solver on the graph (to find intersections and zeros) as well as doing definite integrals on the calculator.

Edited April 8, 2023 by silver

[Roadrunner]

I would see if I could sign up as a teacher, although this late in the game, I am not sure if that’s possible. 
Try that first

[SeaConquest]

1 hour ago, silver said:

ETA: with regard to calculator knowledge needed, the AP exam says that you can use the calculator to graph functions, find zeros/intersection points, solve a derivative at a point, or solve a definite integral. In the MCQ section, you may need it to find a decimal approximation of a trig function or natural log, but that's easy to do. My son says that there hasn't really been anything beyond those that he's needed to do on a calculator. So, make sure he's familiar with graphing functions and using the solver on the graph (to find intersections and zeros) as well as doing definite integrals on the calculator.

I am totally panicking now. I bought Sacha a TI-36x Pro calculator because it said it was allowed on AP exams. But, I guess this is a non-graphing calculator. Do I need to buy him a graphing calculator and teach him to use that? 

[Roadrunner]

6 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

I am totally panicking now. I bought Sacha a TI-36x Pro calculator because it said it was allowed on AP exams. But, I guess this is a non-graphing calculator. Do I need to buy him a graphing calculator and teach him to use that? 

Yep 😞 

Don’t panic though. Mine still despises that graphing one and has never used it since that exam. It won’t take your boy long to learn what he needs to do on it. 

[SeaConquest]

11 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Yep 😞 

Don’t panic though. Mine still despises that graphing one and has never used it since that exam. It won’t take your boy long to learn what he needs to do on it. 

Oh FFS. I am flying to Santa Rosa tomorrow for 2 weeks to take care of my sister. Just ordered a TI-84 CE from Target and my DH is going to pick it up today. I seriously would have sent him in there with that other calculator. I am so not on top of this stuff. My poor kid. 

Thank you so much for helping me!!

[SeaConquest]

Are there videos that people recommend to learn to use these graphing calculators?

Does he need to load anything ahead of time into the calculator to make things easier?

[silver]

2 hours ago, SeaConquest said:

Are there videos that people recommend to learn to use these graphing calculators?

Does he need to load anything ahead of time into the calculator to make things easier?

Finding zeros
Video https://youtu.be/V3MHTV_6wWw
TI's help page: https://education.ti.com/en/customer-support/knowledge-base/ti-83-84-plus-family/product-usage/34516

intersections
Video https://youtu.be/1ja1baK8br4
TI's help page: https://education.ti.com/en/customer-support/knowledge-base/ti-83-84-plus-family/product-usage/34471

derivative at a point
Video https://youtu.be/uG6B6QRnBrs
I couldn't find this on their help pages

 

definite integral
video https://youtu.be/mQQ7avd6Sno
TI's help page: https://education.ti.com/en/customer-support/knowledge-base/ti-83-84-plus-family/product-usage/13341

 

For FRQ, if you do any calculus other than this, you are supposed to show your work on paper anyway, so I'm not sure any added programs would be helpful/necessary. 

Edited April 8, 2023 by silver

[silver]

4 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

I would see if I could sign up as a teacher, although this late in the game, I am not sure if that’s possible. 
Try that first

AP course approval for the 2022-23 school year is closed, and teachers for the 2023-24 school year wouldn't get AP classroom access until July.

[SeaConquest]

<From a bar in the SD airport, en route to my sister> Just wanted to thank you ladies for sparing S and I from certain disaster! Calculator in hand and vids watched. So, now we just have to ward off the potential disasters. ❤️

Edited April 9, 2023 by SeaConquest

[Roadrunner]

53 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

<From a bar in the SD airport, en route to my sister> Just wanted to thank you ladies for sparing S and I from certain disaster! Calculator in hand and vids watched. So, now we just have to ward off the potential disasters. ❤️

Since you still have access to OHS Calculus course on collegeboard site, can’t you ask them to assign reviews to your boy? I would explain your situation. He is their student even if he switched out of that particular class. It would take a teacher 5 minutes to give access to review materials for your boy. 

[Caroline]

1 hour ago, SeaConquest said:

<From a bar in the SD airport, en route to my sister> Just wanted to thank you ladies for sparing S and I from certain disaster! Calculator in hand and vids watched. So, now we just have to ward off the potential disasters. ❤️

You might want to check out DeltaMath for review for the AP Exam. You would have to set up a teacher account, but it would give him access to AP Exam like questions and explanation videos. 

[SanDiegoMom]

My son did the Aops class and then I bought an AP review book.  Physical copy was his preference to digital.  He started out scoring between a 3/4 on the first practice test and had a 5 by the third.  We used https://www.albert.io/blog/ap-score-calculators/ to try to get a general idea of what his score would be.