AP Calculus Mock Exam time
There’s only five more weeks of school left before the AP exams begin! AHHH! This time of year is both exciting, as we quickly approach the big day we’ve been working towards all year, yet also terrifying, as I constantly question whether I’ve covered certain topics enough and wonder what else I should be doing to make sure my students are as prepared as they can be.
One of my favorite things our school does to get students ready is a full mock exam, which is a previously released practice exam from CollegeBoard. Our mock exams are held with the help of Mass Insight for Education (Mi, formerly known as MIE). This organization pairs with high-needs schools and provides training and funding to help kick-start a successful AP program. The goal is to increase enrollment, especially among students who typically would not enroll in an AP course, and then improve student scores through monetary incentives for teachers and students as well as various trainings and professional development (PD) for teachers. Our school partnered with Mi in 2010.
My favorite PD hosted by Mi is the Summer Institute, which I have attended FOUR times! This is a week-long overnight training at a nearby college, and it has always been very high quality and extremely helpful. It’s also fun, has good food, and is a great way to connect with other AP Calculus teachers. Although most of the monetary funding has ended (Mi actively funds for five years), we continue to do the Saturday sessions, mock exam, and PD with them.
Today was the day for our AP Calculus BC mock exam (actually all AP STEM courses had their mock exam today at my school), and although it can be tough going to school from 8-noon on a Saturday, today happened to be icy, rainy, cold, and generally gross out, so it wasn’t bad spending it in my classroom. I have 27 students this year in Calculus BC, so there was just enough room for them to spread out in my classroom and the common room right outside my classroom.
I got there around 7:15 to give myself time to carry up snacks and water bottles, get the desks ready, lay out the test materials, and set up my laptop and projector.
Mi used to fund snacks as well, letting us spend $2 per students, so I used to go all out with snacks. This year we didn’t get any reimbursement so I was a bit more conservative with the purchase and told them all to eat breakfast beforehand! Here’s the snack table in the common room:
I used to grade my students’ free response questions (FRQs) and got paid $5 per test graded, which I loved because I could see trends in common errors and make notes on what we needed to cover more. Starting around 2019, Mi partnered with Applied Practice, a company that copies our mock exams for us (we used to have to do this ourselves), ships them to us, and then grades them for us. It usually takes about 1-2 weeks to get results back.
Since I’m impatient and want to see their multiple choices results right away, I have them bubble their answers in a second time on a GradeCam scantron (second from left below), which I scan as they are doing their FRQs. This year, the mock exam had to be given two weeks earlier than normal, so there were 9-10 MC questions that they were not able to answer since we haven’t finished Unit 10 and haven’t started Unit 9. I told them to make a guess since it’s better than leaving a question blank.
There were also two full FRQs that they had no chance doing well on: a series/convergence FRQ and a parametric particle motion FRQ . I decided to replace them with two other FRQs from last year’s exam: an FRQ involving volumes and improper integrals and an FRQ involving regular particle motion. I am grading these two myself and will show them how to adjust their mock exam score to factor in these two FRQs.
I always make the mock exam count as a test score in quarter 4, and it ends up being the only test grade in quarter 4, along with a few more quizzes and homework assignments. I use the following scale when I enter scores in my gradebook:
5 -> 100%
4 -> 90%
3 -> 80%
2 -> 70%
1 -> 60%
Once I get the FRQ results back, I will ask them to revise their mock exams after school or during free periods to earn 10% back on their mock exam, and more importantly, improve their understanding and see what mistakes they may be making. I am going to give them the answer key and scoring guidelines for this to ensure they don’t get stuck on a problem for too long and get discouraged, and also to make sure they get them done before the actual AP exam. Once the mock exam results come in, it’s almost April break, and once April break ends, there’s only TWO MORE WEEKS left until exams begin!
I always remind students that their mock exam score is an underestimate of what they can expect on the actual AP exam. Most likely they didn’t study for the mock exam, whereas they (hopefully) will study for the real exam, and also, by the time they take the real exam, we will have covered everything and also reviewed.