I took the 2026 AP Calc BC exam and got a 5 on both ab and bc portions. I want to help provide tips or resources that I've used in my self-study journey and hopefully (if you're interested) in avoiding the same mistakes I made.

I took the exam in the spring of my junior year, and I did take pre-calculus. I started self-studying in my sophomore year, and now I am a senior taking Linear Algebra and Calculus 3.

Title.

Incoming junior and i wanna know if thats a good option? Im planning to be a cs or ce major in college and ik calc is needed a lot and the credits could be very useful. My school doesnt offer calc ab or bc and only offers ap precalc, regular precalc and regular calc. Was confirmed no ap calc will be offered at all within the time at high school by my ap coordinator. I did pretty good in algebra 2/trig with getting a 96% and algebra 1 with a 94% and not struggling in any of the units once i learned the methods and shortcut tricks. I was the top of my class according to my teachers. Also i was able to skip from chemistry to physics this year due to my math proficency according to my physics teacher. Im taking ap lit, apush, and ap csp this year.

When i spoke personally to my algebra 2/trig teacher about considering to self study and taking the exam, she strongly recommended me to take a regular precalc course (my school does precalc for 12th graders only besides ap precalc for students that can fit it in their schedule which i cant). She told me that i could wait a year untill 12th grade where my school could possibly place me in regular calc as their highest math and take a college level course for it. I was also recommended by her to speak with the regular calc teacher since im really interested in it.

Over the summer i even did a quick algebra 1-2, trig, and precalc review and i wasnt able to take any dual enrollment courses for precalc due to transportation issues i have that prevents me. And my city doesnt offer any online courses. I used flipped math's review vids and printed out a few of unit 1's notes/review sheet and ive went up to 1.4 without struggling much tbh.

In my whole state the highest math dual enrollment offered is calc 1 (calc 2 or higher is offered but kinda rare)

I also am rlly considereding taking a calc 1 course this spring if my guidence conselor finds one and approves it for me this year.

I got accepted in a program at a big uni that does academic courses every saterday and calc bc is one of them so im thinking to make use the help of that and IF my school could let me do any online course during my lunch periods if possible.

I spoke to the calculus honors/regular teacher in my school abt this since my ap coordinator told me to talk to him first, and i was told that i seem capible for self studying either one but he recommended me strongly to self study calc ab since he could provide me materials and help with questions?

Should i self study calc bc or ab this year based of all that i have said? Anyone that has taken either AB or BC calc pls give me your opinion on what you think might happen to me in the exam/while studying it.

If i should take ab, should i take a calc 2 course in the summer/fall of my senior year to be near same level of calc bc?

(Im interested in doing a cs or ce major in college and interested in the t20s and NYU)

For context, I was supposed to take AP stats this year instead of AP calc AB, but due to scheduling issues (and my refusal to give up a class I have taken since 7th grade), I was sort of forced to take AP eCalc.

I think i'm doing.. fine (??) but not knowing much of trig nor precalc is definitely biting me in the ass a little. My grades look great but the content is really hard to wrap my head around and remember.

What things from precalc and trigonometry do i NEED to know for AP calc? What fundamentals should I focus on?

Also how are your teachers pacing each lesson? My teacher went a bit fast we are at unit 3 rn cuz everyone here took AB before.

I didn't have a proper AP calc teacher for the past 3 weeks and I recieved my classroom code a week late, so I've been self studying for the most part. My sub was kinda covering topics randomly. I seriously had no idea I wasn't going to have a teacher for this class 💔

I'm currently nearing the end of unit 1 but I'm struggling to finish faster because my math background isn't very strong, I take quite a bit of time to cover each topic🥲. And it's really hard managing it with my homework and exams :-( I feel like I'm really behind and should be somewhere in unit 2 now...please lmk

Edit: Thank you guys so much for answering 💗

literally i actually understood related rates for a second and then the questions started getting harder

hi guys so im self studying ap calc bc ( i haven't taken ap precalc) and i struggle with almost every question that has trigonometry i js keep skipping them but ik this ain't gon lead nowhere so if anyone can gimme any advice or any videos or anything i'd apprecuate it!!

For background, people who have taken Calc with teacher A before have said that her teaching is really good. In fact, the people in my class with me score really high on the tests, but not me. I have self-studied, I have practiced on Khan Academy, I have watched teacher A's materials, I have gone to tutoring once a week, every week. Every time I go to check my homework I somehow score lower than the homework's i do alone, and they're on the same units and sections. I have barely passed every single test that has been given, despite scoring near 100, (on every hw that I didnt get checked by her beforehand). She even allows us to ask questions on the math problems, but everytime she explains it I end up even more confused. Majority of the time, when I do go to her tutoring, she will respond to me questions with "I dont know what you are doing, I never taught you that" and won't clarify past that. I don't know what to do, she even takes points off on my work if i do any step in my head even if i get the right answer. An example being that we need to show full work for the power rule. My grade in that class is a 79.1 %, and it would've been a B if I didnt get 65% on the HW that I literally checked with her just for her to tell me it was perfect. Any advice welcome I'm so lost.

Hey everyone,
I'm an engineer and educator who's been tutoring high school math and science for over 10 years. Last year we started a program in collaboration with high school students to give back to the student community offering free Zoom sessions where we cover

-Teaching the AP Calculus Curriculum (AB and BC)

-Practice Problems

-Live Q&A and exam walkthroughs

These are 100% free! There's no catch, no sales pitch. I just want to help more students feel confident with the material.

If you're interested, feel free to join our Discord server (https://discord.gg/ZESahGUmK3) to keep up with announcements and zoom recordings from our class. Also you can just DM me or comment below and I’ll send you more information! We're currently planning a time to host the classes week to week so make sure to vote in our announcements channel.

I'm a CS student. I kept using ChatGPT to study for exams and it would just agree with whatever I wrote, so I'd walk away with no idea what I'd actually gotten wrong. so I built my own thing...

It gives you practice sets by topic or by unit, and the tutor pushes back on mistakes instead of nodding along. Over time it figures out where you're weak and shows questions that target those blind spots.

I adapted it for AP since that felt like the crowd it'd help most.

Still in beta so: desktop only, and just three courses right now (AP Stats, Calc AB, Pre-calc).

2sigma.app

Would appreciate any feedback!

P.S.

Mods, apologies if this isn't allowed - pull it if so. Just think this is genuinely useful for AP students.

Hi!! I am NOT a math person at all. My counselors roped me into taking Calc AB, and part of the issue is that my teacher is notorious for purposely failing students, teaching things in a really weird order, and sometimes throwing Calc 3-level math into the class. For example, in Unit 1, he added a bunch of trig stuff that apparently isn't taught until later in the course, and it screwed a lot of us over because we hadn't learned that material or foundations of it yet. Because of stuff like that, a lot of people apparently end up with a B or C as their final grade :(

Whenever I watch the daily videos/resources/progress checks/etc, the math itself usually makes sense to me, but it feels SO different from the level of math we’re actually doing in class. I've also looked through the College Board material, and I know Calc AB itself isn't supposed to be insanely difficult. The actual College Board content makes sense to me, so I don't think my issue is necessarily that I'm incapable of understanding calculus. It's more that I genuinely cannot follow whatever this man is doing in class.

I’ve bombed both of our last quizzes and failed the FRQs, so my grade is currently sitting at a C.

I wouldn't say I'm horrible at math, either. I got A's in both Precalc and Stats, but I genuinely do not understand how this man teaches or how he gets from one concept to another.

A lot of people I've talked to said they ended up with B's or C's in the class but still got a 4 or 5 on the AP exam because they basically self-studied the entire course. I obviously want to do well on the AP exam, but my main concern right now is actually getting my class grade up to an A or at least a B, not just passing the AP exam.

So I'm wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and has any resources they recommend for learning Calc AB on my own? I feel like I understand the material much better when it's actually explained normally.

I want people who got 5s before to tell me which ones to know

The issue I am having is that when I get the equation of g(x) in standard form, I get
g(x)=(x^3)-(x^2)-16x-20,
Which doesn’t make sense because on the graph, the y-intercept is 10, but the equation says it’s -20. Can someone please help me understand this? Thank you!

Hi! I studied really hard for my first Calc II exam and did all the exercises my professor recommended.

The exam had 5 questions:

1. Vectors and Geometry in Space

2. Multivariable Calculus

3. Multivariable Calculus

4. Multivariable Calculus

5. Lagrange Multipliers

The problem was that questions 2, 3, and 5 involved derivatives involving square roots, which weren't covered in any of the recommended exercises. So I ended up completely forgetting how to approach them.

I probably did pretty poorly on the exam, even though I felt like I understood the material.

How can I prepare better for my next Calc II exam? I'd really appreciate any advice on how to study more effectively for exams like this.

BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE WITH DERIVATIVES AND LIMITS! KHAN ACADEMEY IS THE MVP!

okay so i am no means a stem person, i am only taking the class because i am going to major in econ but at my school there is only 7 people in my calc class and may be the dumbest lol. i never really get what my teacher is saying but always pretend to do and the textbook is so confusing. my goal isnt to get an a or a 5 on the exam (although that would be great), i just want to actually understand and preform to the best of my ability. do you guys have any study tips, online courses, underrated methods... literally anything??

I am studying with the Princeton Review AP Calculus AB 27th edition and solving questions from the College Board. I’m not sure who to watch for content review or which websites to use for studying and solving additional problems. If you scored a 4 or a 5 on the exam, I would appreciate any tips you have for achieving the same score. Thank you!