Monday, October 31, 2011

Answers to pages 5-9

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. E
5. E
6. A
7. D
8. D
9. A
10. A
11. C
12. C
13. B
14. C
15. B
16. f(-3) = 4.5; f(4) = -5 + 2pi

Friday, October 28, 2011

This weekend

Be sure to try the AP sample problems on pages 5-9 in your packet.  You can record your answers on page 10 and see the percentage correct for each problem.  Be prepared to ask questions about these problems and share your results with each other on Monday.

If you have time, consider trying some of the free response problems in the packet on pages 11-13.  There are also additional review problems listed on the bottom of page 4 in the packet.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

200 days

The AP Calculus BC on May 9, 2012 is just 200 days away!  That may sound like a long way off, but the time will pass quickly.  We have only 33 days of class left this semester before final exams.

Be sure to work on test #3 corrections this weekend and current homework (4.1 & 4.3). 
The next test covers sections 4.1, 4.3, 4.4, & 4.5 and will be on Thursday, November 3.

Also, remember to prepare group solutions for Monday:
1 - 4.1 #16, 22
2 - 4.1 #20, 28
3 - 4.1 #49
4 - 4.1 #45
5 - 4.1 #64, 66
6 - 4.3 #7
7 - 4.3 #19
8 - 4.3 #24, 26

Friday, October 21, 2011

Test #3 scoring

Clarification for the way test #3 was scored ...

Multiple choice: # correct / 18 x 60 (maximum of 60 points)

Free response: (20 - points deducted) x 2 (maximum of 40 points)

The free response were scored similar to the way actual AP free response questions are scored.  There were a total of 20 "AP style" points on your test that were scaled up to 40 points for the test.

I will be adding the curve in gradespeed soon.

Test #3

I just finished grading your tests. 
Some students demonstrated that it was entirely possible to do very well on this test.  Out of the 100 students who took the test, 3 earned a perfect 100 and 33 earned an A or B before the curve.  However, 41 earned an F and quite a few of these were very low.  Despite my suggestions/warnings, it appears that some of you have severely underestimated the time and effort needed to succeed in this class and you allowed yourself to be extremely ill-prepared for this test. The results of this test are historically low.  Please be aware that I am not willing to water-down this course or to reduce the pace and not finish the course content before the AP exam in May. 

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Test #3 Thursday!

Study! Study! Study!

You know what to expect on the 2 free response questions.  Make sure you can properly justify features of the graph of f using the given graph of f '.  Justifications will be required for finding intervals on which f is increasing or decreasing, has local extrema, is concave up or concave down, or has points of inflection.  In addition to all the examples we did in class, here are some examples from the sample test: http://www.bellaire.org/mazzoni/apcalc/notes/test3sample-fr.pdf

There will be a free response bonus question.  It will be worth a small amount of points, so please only try this after completing the rest of the test.

Also, for the multiple choice, about 1/2 of the 18 questions will deal with the connections between f, f ', and f '' and the related behavior (increasing, decreasing, local extrema, concavity, poi).  Take some time to simply think through how all of this information is related.

The other multiple choice questions will cover a variety of topics.  You can anticipate about 2 questions on each of the following topics: linear approximations, limits (using L'Hopital's rule), optimization, and related rates.

Answers to multiple choice sample test questions: http://www.bellaire.org/mazzoni/apcalc/notes/test3sample-mc.pdf

Good luck as you complete your final preparations for this test.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Test #3 sample free response

Please try more review problems tonight and be prepared to share solutions to group assigned problems tomorrow!

Here are solutions to the sample test free response problems:
http://www.bellaire.org/mazzoni/apcalc/notes/test3sample-fr.pdf

Also, in your review materials I included two extra AP free response questions.  Here are the scoring guides for those problems (scroll down to the appropriate number within each document) ...

2007 AB #6:
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/_ap07_calculus_ab_sgs_final.pdf

2009 AB & BC (Form B) #5: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap09_calculus_ab_form_b_sgs.pdf

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

3-3 and 3-4 Group Solutions

http://www.bellaire.org/mazzoni/apcalc/notes/3-3_3-4.PDF

3.7 Optimization video

Reminder: be sure to view the video lecture for section 3.7 today.  The video is about 33 minutes in length.

video: http://got.im/uzT
handout: http://www.bellaire.org/mazzoni/apcalc/notes/3-7_notes.pdf

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Increasing and decreasing functions and the MVT

Here's a short video that contains justifications (using the mean value theorem) for the connections between the sign of f ' and the increasing/decreasing behavior of f

http://bit.ly/pLOBJi

Saturday, October 8, 2011

October calendar updated

Friday, October 14 and Monday, October 17 have been swapped:
http://www.bellaire.org/mazzoni/apcalc/apcalendars/ap1110.pdf

Friday, October 7, 2011

Sections 3.3 and 3.4 this weekend

Be sure to spend time working on the 3.3 and 3.4 assignments.  The group solutions for periods 2 and 3 will be collected on Monday at the beginning of class.  Solutions to these selected problems will be posted online next week.

Please plan to stop by during lunch tutorials next week if you have questions about recent homework assignments.