Practice to Mastery

Practice to Mastery: AP® Precalculus Practice Exams gives you twelve full-length practice exams for AP® Precalculus, each built to the published format of the examination. Every exam is a complete rehearsal: the same sections and parts, the same numbers of questions, the same time limits, the same calculator rules, and the same four free-response question types. These are original practice exams, written to test whether you can work the whole course under the clock.

Each exam follows the structure set out in the AP® Precalculus Course and Exam Description:

Section I, Multiple Choice (42 questions, 1 hour 45 minutes, 62.5% of the score). Part A has 29 questions in 65 minutes without a calculator and asks for exact values, symbolic work, graphs, transformations, and reasoning. Part B has 13 questions in 40 minutes with a graphing calculator and asks for regressions, numerical solutions, intersections, extreme values, and work with decimal data.

Section II, Free Response (4 questions, 1 hour 10 minutes, 37.5% of the score). Part A, with a graphing calculator: Function Concepts and Modeling a Non-Periodic Context. Part B, without a calculator: Modeling a Periodic Context and Symbolic Manipulations. Each question is worth 6 points.

Every exam samples all three assessed units of the course in roughly the proportions the course description sets out: polynomial and rational functions; exponential and logarithmic functions; and trigonometric and polar functions. Questions are mixed the way they are on test day, with shared graphs and tables, context-based models, and reasoning questions, and no difficulty labels are printed. The twelve exams are written to the same standard and are comparable in difficulty and coverage, so your scores from one exam to the next show real progress.

Directly after each exam you will find:

An answer key and a Review Your Results table that sorts every multiple-choice question by unit and by calculator rule

A worked explanation of every multiple-choice question, with exact steps for no-calculator questions and the calculator operation and three-decimal results for calculator questions

A point-by-point scoring guide for every free-response question, with scoring notes, partial-credit rules, accepted answers, and a complete model solution

A score estimate that turns your two section scores into an estimated AP® score from 1 to 5

The opening chapters explain the format of the exam, how to take each practice exam under timed conditions, how to score your own free-response answers strictly, and how to review your results three ways: by unit, by kind of question (conceptual, symbolic, modeling, or graphical), and by calculator rule. That review is where the real gains come from, and it tells you exactly what to practice before the next exam.

Inside you will find:

12 full-length practice exams

552 questions: 504 multiple choice and 48 free response

Graphs, tables, unit circles, and polar grids drawn for the questions

Detailed explanations, scoring guides, and a score estimate for every exam

Use the exams spaced through the year, as a diagnose-and-repair cycle, or as a final month of full-length practice. All questions, data sets, graphs, explanations, and scoring guides are original. This book is the companion to Practice to Mastery: AP® Precalculus Workbook, which practices the course one unit at a time; the two books share their conventions and contain no question in common.

AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.