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Marshall Ransom started teaching at Georgia Southern University, Department of Mathematical Sciences, in 2003.  Before that he taught secondary math from 7th grade through Advanced Placement Calculus, followed by ten years as a high school and district administrator in the Daytona Beach area.  He has been a reader and table leader for the scoring of AP Calculus exams since 1991.  He is currently President-Elect of the Georgia Association of AP Math Teachers, an affiliate of GCTM.  He has five grandchildren ages 4 to 13 and says, “All old folks like me should have a few of these.”

Some History of the AP Calculus
Curriculum and Exam 1969-2022


This article traces a history of changes in Advanced Placement Calculus.  Some changes involve topics such as differential equations.  Some involve significant changes such as allowing the use of a graphics calculator by students for a few of the questions.  Some involve changes in the scoring of free response questions (FRQs), requiring more mathematics in the explanations of solutions.  And, believe it or not, some involve less mathematics being shown by students.

The intent of this article is to look at some of the significant changes in AP Calculus, often through the lens of the FRQs.  This discussion begins in 1969, the first year of two separate courses, AB and BC.  For information describing the AP program and calculus prior to 1969, the reader is referred to the three articles below.

“Meeting the Challenge of AP Calculus, III: Foundations”  Bressoud, 2010

“The strange role of calculus in the United States”  Bressoud, 2020

Eric Rothschild

The History Teacher, Feb., 1999, Vol. 32, No. 2, Special Issue: Advanced Placement (Feb., 1999), pp. 175-206

Available at  Four Decades of the Advanced Placement Program on JSTOR

I.                        How many FRQs are on the test?

From 1969 through 1982 there were seven free response questions (FRQs).  In 1983 and 84 there were five, and a scientific calculator was allowed.  Since 1985 there have been six FRQs on both AP Calculus exams.  In 1993 and 1994 scientific calculators were once more allowed.  Beginning in 1995 a graphics calculator has been allowed for some questions.  Possibly of more significance than the total number of questions on the exam is an attempt at making all exam questions have “entry-level” parts—parts that should be accessible for AP Calculus students. This approach has been successful in minimizing the number of students who provided little or even no response to the last question or two.

II.                     Topics dead and gone?

Beginning in 1969 with the first BC Exam, expectations for solutions of differential equations were much more robust than at present.  Also, up through the 1997 exam, precalculus material was explicitly tested on both the AB and BC exams.  Some examples follow.

Read the rest of the article 


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