AP Calc Student Syllabus

AP Calculus covers beginning and intermediate level calculus with the goal of preparing students to take the Advanced Placement Calculus AB exam in the spring. As this is an AP course, it will focus not only on how to solve problems but also on the application of knowledge to real-world situations and on the theory that underlies the problem solving techniques. Students taking this course should be prepared to do a fair amount of memorization—in order to do well on the AP exam certain things (for example, trig identities and logarithm rules) must be memorized to avoid taking up to much time simply getting ready to solve the problems.

Students will be graded on daily work, homework, quizzes, tests, and/or projects. Students are responsible for doing the work assigned to them and for reading any supplementary texts assigned. Test grades will comprise 60% of the final grade, quizzes 30%, and homework/daily work 10%. Since this class is preparing you for a multiple-choice exam, tests will often be given in a similar format.

Students are expected to come prepared for class. This means you should have paper, pen or pencil, and your book. If you find that you do not have one of these items, you should make arrangements to acquire them before the bell rings. Students who are unprepared once class has started more than once in a week may be docked points from their daily grades. Students should be ready to work when the bell rings. This does not mean that you can run in when the bell rings, lay down your things and go to the restroom. If you plan on using the restroom, be sure to give yourself enough time to get to class before the bell. Remember: a tardy results in detention as per school policy.

This class has a class blog at apcalc08.blogspot.com. All homework for the class will be posted on the blog. In addition challenge problems will be posted on the blog periodically. Students are encouraged to use the comments on blog posts to discuss problems and help their fellow students. Rules for posting comments are as follows:

1. All students must post under the name they use in class (no anonymous comments).

2. No disparaging comments are to be made about other students or their work.

3. While you are encouraged to help your classmates with their work, you may not simply post the solutions to the problems. You need to help each other, not do each others work.