College Board introduced AP Precalculus as an AP Class this school year. This May is the first AP exam season that includes Precalculus, and the date is fast approaching.
Because AP Precalculus is brand new, students, and teachers have no idea what to expect. For other AP classes, teachers go through past exam questions to predict what material will be on the exam. For Precalculus, anything is possible.
“Honestly, we’re flying blind. We’re doing our best, but I have no idea what the exam is going to look like,” said Ms. Barrow, AP Precalculus teacher at Leesville.
Because AP Precalculus is a brand new class, students wonder if College Board will make the exam easier or harder than other AP exams. College Board could give less complicated questions as a starting point for the new exam, or they could throw their hardest questions at students to gauge how difficult they should make future exams.
“I can see it going either way, just because [College Board] hasn’t normed the scores. They don’t have any data to say where the average student is, so the questions could be really hard but the scores are fine because they realize that the [questions] were too difficult,” said Barrow.
The exam has potential to be challenging. However, it’s important to remember that College Board scores exams on a scale that reflects how difficult the exam was and how well students performed nationwide.
Additionally, how students perform on the exam depends on how well they prepare. There are many resources available for students to study.
There is one more AP Precalculus review session before the exam, after school on May 9 in room 2212. Students can also prepare for the exam with practice questions on AP Classroom. Additionally, the Precalculus teachers have released several practice exams, progress checks, and quizzes for each unit so students can refresh their knowledge.
This review is especially important for students who took Precalculus in the fall semester. There are many minor errors that students can make when solving Precalculus questions, because the problems are fairly complex. If students took Precalculus in fall, they are prone to forget these details.
The 2024 AP Precalculus exam is on May 13 at 12:30pm. Students with last names A-M will take the exam in the Auxiliary Gym, and last names N-Z will test in the Library.
Precalculus students should take advantage of the practice materials to achieve the best score they can on this never-before-seen exam.
