AP Calculus AB Reviews

Recommend

• Did you feel this class prepared you for the AP exam?

Yes. Especially because the homework problems were generally more difficult than official AP problems.

• How many hours of work per day or per week did you generally put into this class?

It depended on the material. Generally, I spent 1.5-2 hours a day, 4 days a week, on reading and homework. 

• Are there any particularly favorite assignments that you found especially valuable?

Not really, because the assignments were pretty consistent. 

• Did this class enhance your interest in the subject?

Yes, mostly because I started connecting to other subjects I had studied. It helps that the textbook and homework provided some “real-world” examples and problems. 

• Did you find your communications with other students to be interesting or valuable?

Yes. Thank you to everyone who posted questions on the forums, because it felt like half the time I had been wondering the same thing. And thank you to everyone who took the time to answer, because the explanations were consistently thorough and genuinely helpful. 

• What sort of student would do well in this class? 

It would help if you don’t tend to procrastinate. I do and found out that one week’s homework can pile up pretty badly if you leave it until the last minute. It would also help to be somewhat self-motivated, as you are provided with many resources but it’s up to you to use them. 

I got a 5 on the AP exam!

This is a very challenging class, but I gained a good grasp of calculus from it and was able to score highly on the AP exam as a result. I feel that Ms. Chan provided her students with all the resources they needed to succeed, provided they were willing to put in the time and effort.

I would estimate that I spent on average  2-2.5 hours per day on the class, including Saturdays. (For reference, I would consider myself pretty decent at math, but definitely not a prodigy. For people who are exceptionally adept in math--or less of a perfectionist than myself--the time may be less.) 

I found that the class discussion board was very helpful for answering my questions, and I especially liked that the homework assignments gave me 5 chances to get the problem right, allowing me to work through it  and really grasp the concept, rather than getting it wrong and just moving on. 

In short, I would suggest the most fitting student for this class is one who is open to a challenge and willing to put in considerable time and effort in order to understand calculus and score highly on the exam. 

Decent class, bad experience

I think that I should start this off by saying I am not a particularly gifted math student, which may have contributed to some of my issues: that being said, here's my review.

Firstly, arguably the most important thing: did I feel prepared for the AP exam? 

Yes and no. On the one hand, I think the quantity of material she provides for test prep is excellent, however, due to certain issues I had, which I will discuss later, I did not have high hopes or expectations for the exam. However, while taking the test, I actually felt fairly good, and I ended up getting a 4, (before the exam I was sincerely praying I would scrape a 3). Thus, while the bonus material, especially college board, was very useful, due to the nature of her homework and tests I was not optimistic.

Secondly, the class itself.

I shall be blunt: I found most of the materials she provided comparatively useless. The textbook is likely decent, though I have no basis for comparison, but the videos she provided to help were not. They were effective regurgitations of the textbook and rarely, if ever, contained new or useful information. I wish to emphasize that if you are a gifted math student with an outstanding grasp of the fundamentals you will have few issues. However, if you are on shakier ground, as I was, then this class will be very difficult if you only use the textbook and the materials she provides. However, Youtube came to my rescue, and the material on there, especially organic chemistry tutor, was a tremendous aid in understanding. To summarize, if you are having issues, I would always recommend youtube first before pursuing additional understanding through her materials. I would also like to take this opportunity to mention the discussion board and how useful the TAs and other students are: take advantage of it. The questions are always answered quickly and comprehensively, and the few times where I was genuinely stumped, even with youtube, the discussion board helped. I would also suggest reading through other students' questions because they are often helpful as well. I should mention that I watched the lectures, but mostly found myself heading over to youtube for more in-depth explanations with a wider range of problems.

The homework and tests.

Again, honesty is my friend: I did exceptionally badly on tests. I might have scored over seventy percent on 1 or 2 tests, but the rest I thoroughly bombed, generally in the sixty percent range. However, I scored over ninety percent on the homework and generally felt good going into the tests only to be proven wrong. This is my foremost issue with this class: the homework rarely translates well to the tests or to actual questions on the exam. I cannot adequately describe how frustrating it is to have problems that might take literal hours to complete and yet have no practical application. I understand that the goal is to understand calculus, but there are certain theoretical problems that I found useless, irritating, and unnecessary. I would say ninety percent of the homework is useful, but that ten percent was frustrating in ways that I cannot fully express, at least in the format of this review. Again, if you are a better student than I am, perhaps these problems will not be so difficult, but I cannot stand superfluous work, and I truly believe that I gained absolutely nothing from the problems that were the most difficult. To summarize once again: the tests and homework often feel disconnected, both from each other and from the actual exam.

Now, some might argue that Mrs. Chan is not trying to make an easy class and therefore I shouldn't be surprised by the difficulty. I agree with that sentiment, up to a point, but I do not understand how pointless, time-consuming, and often frustrating problems better my understanding of the material. I think the notable disparity between my expectations before the exam and my score on it speak to that issue as well: I never expect bad scores on my exams, generally expecting to see at least a four, but I genuinely thought I had a fifty/fifty chance between a 3 and a 2. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected a 4 and yet that's what I got. This disparity between my expectations and reality is rather important as well, especially for students with test anxiety: I really don't feel anxious before exams, (resignation at worst), but for students who do, those kinds of bad expectations would be rather harmful.

In conclusion, I think this class is fine if you are a confident math student. However, if you do feel a little bit shakier on the subject, you need to be very prepared to use outside resources. I should also mention that the time requirement is, on average, between 2-4 hours per day, which includes weekends. Anyway, while I had a bad experience, I seem to be one of the few, so I'm merely reviewing this course to hopefully prepare prospective students for potential pitfalls they may suffer. So, do plenty of prep, use the plentiful outside resources, and don't grow overly frustrated with the homework and you'll probably do fine.

The Class that Helps You Achieve what You Thought was Unachievable

Nico's AP Calculus Review

• Did you feel this class prepared you for the AP exam?

Absolutely. You definitely can't slack with this class, and expect to do a lot of your own review work, but the payoff will be immense.

• How many hours of work per day or per week did you generally put into this class?

I would say on average I put in 1-2 hours per weekday.

• Are there any particularly favorite assignments that you found especially valuable?

Nothing, in particular, stands out at the moment, but I did enjoy any assignments that dealt with the real-world implications of calculations.

• Did this class enhance your interest in the subject?

100%

• Did you find your communications with other students to be interesting or valuable?

I definitely picked up a few tips and tricks from the discussion boards, and I also enjoyed helping other students through problems on occasion.

• What sort of student would do well in this class? Would you recommend this class to other students (if they are willing to work hard!)?

The ideal student for this class would be one who is incredibly self-motivated and willing to put in the hours. I would absolutely recommend it!

I would definitely recommend this class!

I would recommend this class to any self-motivated student needing a calculus course. It can be easy to get behind in this class if you aren’t diligent to do a little bit everyday, so for that reason I think a student who is self-motivated and knows how to pace their work would do best. That being said, I did not feel that the workload was unmanageable, and it was nice being able to receive homework extensions during very busy weeks.

One thing I found very helpful was the class discussion boards. Here I was able to post all my homework questions, and my classmates and TAs were super helpful in aiding my understanding of certain problems. I also appreciated the live meetings and how Ms. Chan emphasized participation during these, and encouraged us to solve practice problems ourselves. This helped me work through tough problems, with live help, which helped to clear up some concepts. These meetings were recorded if I was unable to make it, which was also nice. Overall, Ms. Chan is a great teacher and I would definitely recommend her course to any math-minded students!

AP Calculus

I found AP Calculus a very enjoyable class, with many interesting topics. At the beginning of the class, I did not quite understand all the material, but later on, with the help of Ms. Chan, I understand the materials of this class. Ms. Chan was very engaged in this class, having weekly sessions every Monday, and she helped every student individually understand the topics of this class.

AP Calculus AB Review: This class was awesome!

I liked this class! I think a lot of people usually think of calculus as a very hard, boring class that takes hours of their day, and even after, they still don’t understand it. I found this class interesting, and after the course, I realized that I liked calculus (and math as a whole), and had a greater appreciation for and better understanding of calculus. Calc AB with Ms. Chan was a very well-done class, and throughout the way, I felt like I understood the material well, and it wasn’t just something that I needed to memorize so that I would get a good grade on the test.

Ms. Chan taught the course in an interesting, informative way that helped me master the material thoroughly, and keep the information in my head. She is a very understanding teacher and will spend time with you to make sure that you understand something if you don’t. She is a great teacher, and I took not just AP Calc AB with her, but also Pre-calc, and I also got a lot out of that class, including finding that I liked pre-calc.

While it is a challenging course and will take a few hours out of your day because there is a lot of material to cover and it takes practice, it is worth it once you realize that you can get college credit as well as perhaps a love of calculus by the end. Overall, this class prepared me for the exam very well, and I enjoyed the course and exploring calculus. Since I plan to go into STEM, knowing that I like calculus (and science of course!) encourages me that I will enjoy the long years of college ahead of me. And good luck to all my fellow students who will be taking the AP Exam with me a few days from now! I know that you have all worked hard, and can achieve a five on this exam! You got this! Happy studying, everyone! :)

~Gianna H.

Great course for exam preparation, definitely recommend

Before taking this class, I had no previous experience with calculus and so I didn't know really what to expect. The first week was a little bit difficult in terms of figuring out how to do the homework, but I was able to figure it out and get used to the rhythm of the class after that. Basically, the class format was that each week Mrs. Chan would assign homework and post a recorded walkthrough of the concepts we would learn. We could then post our questions on a discussion page in Canvas, and then during the class time Mrs. Chan would do some lecturing but would also help us solve the problems we had in that week. Because of that the classes (or class recordings for whenever I missed class) were often very helpful whenever there was a concept that I had difficulty grasping. The work load kind of fluctuated for me, sometimes the homework was easier/harder than usual depending on how well I understood the concept. But usually it took around 3 hours daily for me.

To do well in the final months/weeks of the course, what I did was go back and reread the portions of the book that had concepts I had difficulty understanding; then I compiled a list of formulas, rules, and theorems I had trouble memorizing and went through this list almost every day during my review. Also, Mrs. Chan had a us take several practice tests, and she recorded some review videos for us that I thought were very helpful. Lastly, I also went through the FRQ's that college board had released from previous years. I found it very helpful to go through those and review where I would have lost points.

So overall, I definitely recommend this course for anyone that would like to have a good introduction to calculus and do well on the AP Calculus AB exam. It's certainly not easy, but Mrs. Chan makes sure that it's also definitely doable. 

Thoughts on the 2021-2022 AP calculus AB course.

The exam was successful.

1) The class did well in preparing me for the exam. I thought I would have to use additional practice textbooks preparing for the test format, but the classes resources were more than enough. I answered almost all the questions on the exam in time with a excellent score.

2) The amount of time per day fluctuates sizably from day to day from a few hours to 8+ hours. On average I would say about 24hr/week but its a rough estimate.

3) The practice homework is great knowledge retention and understanding how the formulas work allowing you to need less time/question on the AP exam.

4) I had a growing interest in mathematics signing up for the course, and the course didn't hurt either. It enlarged my toolbox to tackle other interesting custom problems outside the course itself.

5) Feedback from other student is a great resource for checking errors, tackle difficult questions, and identify missing concepts.

6) I definitely would recommend this course for those who like a good intellectual challenge and already have a basic appreciation and intuition about calculus. 

Great Class!

Though math was not one of my stronger suits, I learned a lot in this class. Ms. Chan is an extremely patient and encouraging teacher who is willing to work with you and help you succeed! 

The WebAssign homework she assigned really helped solidify concepts in my mind, while the CollegeBoard assignments helped us practice specifically according to the AP exam format. Because I am overseas, it was difficult for me to participate in the live discussions, however. There wasn't a lot of student-student interaction on the discussion boards, but I personally didn't feel like I missed out on any important information because of that. Ms. Chan also provided multiple extra credit opportunities, which I found to be extremely valuable. Overall, I typically spent 1-2 hours daily working on Calc and felt like the workload was quite balanced. If you're willing to put in the effort and stay on top of the WebAssign work, you'll be fine! 

Hands Down the Best Class Ever!

I have been taught by Ms. Chan for 2 years now, and I cannot say enough about how great she is. I 100% recommend this course, or any of her courses!

• How many hours of work per day or per week did you generally put into the course?
  • I worked about an hour per week day... sometimes 6 hours/week. It really depended on what assignments were due and if there was a test. It is all VERY manageable if you are determined.
• Are there any particularly favorite assignments that you found especially valuable?
  • I found the Web-Assign homework to be very valuable, especially since I got multiple tries to get the correct answer. I was able to LEARN through my mistakes. I also liked the layout of the Unit tests. It was not overwhelming; just enough questions to reach mastery.
• Did the course enhance your interest in the subject?
  • This course greatly enhanced my interest in the field of Mathematics. I am actually going to study Math in college. This course has helped me have a solid foundation of Calculus... that is very important!
• Did you find your communications with other students to be interesting or valuable?
  • I did not really communicate with other students, but that was ONLY because of my very demanding schedule. However, Ms. Chan gives multiple opportunities for discussion/communication with students.
• What sort of student would do well in this course? Would you recommend this course to other students (if they are willing to work hard!)?
  • I believe any student who is WILLING to learn and put in effort will succeed in this course. Do not get me wrong, this course is quite challenging, but it is DOABLE. Ms. Chan will not leave you on your own. Reach out to her if you have any questions. She WANTS TO HELP YOU! She provides many resources if you are struggling:)