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The Best AP Calculus Resources

Posted on by Kennon McCaa

Succeeding in AP Calculus takes work! If you are going to put in the work, make sure you are working smarter, not harder. Here are the best resources that I have found to help you be efficient and get great practice quickly. Of course, if you need tutoring in Osprey or via FaceTime/Computer, just schedule a tutoring session and we will be happy to help.

Studying for a AP Calculus Chapter Test

The files listed below are great for studying for a chapter test. They have all of the released problems from 1969 through 2012 categorized by topic. The saint who did this work will forever have my appreciation. First, open the “Table of Contents” file and look for the topic(s) that are on your chapter test. This will tell you what page numbers will contain relevant questions. Then, use the “Pages” file(s) to find the actual questions. For example, suppose your chapter test is on “Area Between Curves”, the Table of Contents says that ” Area Between Curves” can be found on pages 242-245, so open the “Pages 208-313” file and scroll to page 242 (page numbers are handwritten at the bottom of each page). Note that next to each question the year is written in pen, so the first “Area Between Curves” question is question #1 from the 1993 BC exam. Using the question number and year, then you can look up the correct answer.

For the 2020 exams, when school campuses were closed due to the Coronavirus, AP had a great series of “Live Lessons” on YouTube. They are available here: AB and BC. AP also released a series of practice problems coordinated with these live lessons. The practice problems are organized by topic and are available here: AB and BC. Because the 2020 test had only free response (FRQ) questions, there are not any multiple choice (MC) questions in this set of practice problems. Furthermore, because the 2020 test was open note and taken at home, it was designed specifically to minimize cheating and the problem style is highly concentrated on abstract functions and data in tables and graphs. As a result, these questions are not completely representative of what would normally appear on a chapter or final test, but they are still a great repository of AP style questions.

Studying for the AP Calculus Final Exam

The best way to study for the final exam or a mid-year mid-term is to do AP calculus questions in no particular order. The old sample exams are a great way to do this. The following items are great resources for studying for a final or mid-term.

AP Calculus Multiple Choice Questions 1969 – 1998

This is a great collection of older multiple choice problems for the AP Calculus AB or BC practice exams. Many of these questions (unaltered) appear in prep books and many of these questions seem to appear in later released tests as well. Although this is a great collection, it does not have the benefit of being quickly searched and sorted the way the spreadsheet does. Luckily, someone took the time to categorize the questions in this document. It isn’t very flashy, but it gets the job done! Of course, if you only have questions and no answers that is not help, so here is a document that includes all of the answers and solutions. It is a large file, so you might want to download one of these smaller files instead: AB and BC Answer Key (without solutions) or the BC Answer Key and Solutions.

Additional AP Calculus Practice Exams with Answers

Just looking for some AP Calculus practice problems in a random order? Here are several practice exams or sets of sample questions that have been released by the College Board in recent years:

Categorized AP Calculus Multiple Choice Questions

The categorized list of multiple choice AP Calculus problems from 1998 – 2012 for both AB and BC Calculus is by far the most organized resource that I have found. This spreadsheet is amazing because it lists 400 multiple choice questions by learning outcome, test date, question number and most importantly of all, links to every question with the answer and solution. These questions are all questions that have been released by the College Board, so you won’t find questions for every year because the College Board does not release questions every year, but the 400 questions in this spreadsheet will keep you pretty busy! Here are a few recommendations on how to best use this spreadsheet:

  • Sort the spreadsheet by “Learning Outcome” that will help all of the questions on the same topic listed together and will put them in the approximate order that you will study them throughout the year. The spreadsheet is currently sorted by “Learning Outcome.”
  • As needed, filter the spreadsheet by “Key Idea”. Even though the spreadsheet is sorted by “Learning Outcome”, sometimes a question includes multiple “Key Ideas” (and “Learning Outcomes”), so filtering can help find additional questions. Here is a picture showing how you might do that so you only see questions on “concavity”:
Filtering AP Calculus Multiple-Choice Questions By Key Idea
  • Once you have the questions organized, click on the link to the PDF file that includes question. This PDF also includes the solution at the bottom of the page, so you can quickly check your answer and perhaps learn additional techniques for solving the question.
  • If you get the question correct and it was easy for you, great, just close the PDF. However, if you struggled at all, you can click the Download icon and save the difficult questions onto your computer so that you can then re-do every challenging question over and over again until they become easy. Once a question becomes easy, move the PDF to your “Not Hard Anymore” folder. This will also allow you to have a nice set of difficult questions to review as you prepare for the final AP exam. You might create a folder structure that looks like this:
Organizing AP Calculus Multiple-Choice Questions
  • Add a column or two to the spreadsheet so you can make your own notes about each question. Perhaps you want to rate each question by difficulty or categorize them by what chapter you were studying.

Categorized AP Calculus Free Response Questions (FRQs)

Just like the invaluable categorized spreadsheet of multiple choice questions mentioned above, this spreadsheet is just as incredible, but it contains the AP Calculus Free Response Questions (FRQs) from 1998 to 2017. These questions are released by the College Board each year, so there are nearly 1,000 questions here!

Calculus Free Response Justifications

Answers to the AP Calculus FRQs are supposed to be short and sweet. Less is more when it comes to these answers. This is a comprehensive guideline for the best way to justify your answers. Memorize the wording in these answers and use them exactly as stated and whoever grades your test will love you.