AP Calculus AB

AP Calculus AB and BC  focus on students’ understanding of calculus concepts and provide experience with methods and applications. Through the use of big ideas of calculus (e.g., modeling change, approximation and limits, and analysis of functions), this course becomes a cohesive whole, rather than a collection of unrelated topics. This course require students to use definitions and theorems to build arguments and justify conclusions.

Both courses feature a multirepresentational approach to calculus, with concepts, results, and problems expressed graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally. Exploring connections among these representations builds understanding of how calculus applies limits to develop important ideas, definitions, formulas, and theorems. A sustained emphasis on clear communication of methods, reasoning, justifications, and conclusions is essential. Teachers and students should regularly use technology to reinforce relationships among functions, to confirm written work, to implement experimentation, and to assist in interpreting results.

AP Calculus AB is designed to be the equivalent of a first semester college calculus course devoted to topics in differential and integral calculus.