Barron's AP Calculus Fourteenth Edition

I used this book to review for the BC Calculus exam, and I managed to score a 5. I did not, however, use any competing calculus review books, so keep that in mind. In summary, I thought it was really helpful for slow and steady practice, and I felt ready going into the exam.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Strengths:1. The book has a ridiculous number of practice questions on all of the topics covered in the exam. In fact, it has 598 practice questions spread out over 10 chapters! On top of that, there are two chapters with miscellaneous practice questions: one has 108 multiple-choice questions, one has 36 free-response questions. And there are still entire practice exams on top of that! If you are looking to score well through sheer practice and repetition, then this is definitely the book to buy. I went through all of the chapters—the book covers both AB and BC—and completed the practice problems at the end, and it took me forever. I spread it out over four months just for slow and steady practice, but it would be impossible to cram in a week. (Just so you know, I did not complete all of the practice exams)2. The practice questions are arguably harder than those on the exam. I struggled to finish some of the multiple choice questions, especially those that apply integration to obscure word problems. During the exam, I thought the questions were quite easy because of the difficult ones that this book occasionally throws at you.Weaknesses:1. The book is honestly too big. I realize that I just placed its size in the "Strengths" category, but for most people the book is just too large, since a lot of students cram in the last week or two. If you use it to supplement classwork and review a month or two in advance, the book will be great. But otherwise, it is probably much too intense.2. The free-response questions (FRQs) do not truly model those that you receive on the exam. Although the book has numerous FRQs that cover all of the important topics, they are not more difficult than the exam's. In fact, I believe they are a tad bit easier, but not to a shocking extent. To properly prepare, look over the released FRQs on the College Board's website; complete them and then check your answers with the scoring guides. This will ensure you succeed on the FRQs, which can occasionally be quite crazy.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Conclusion (TL;DR):This book is really helpful to a dedicated student who completes a majority of the problems in the weeks (or months) leading up to the exam. The book certainly has enough practice, and the problems are difficult enough that the exam will be familiar. The only real downside to this book is that the free-response questions are not a great representation of those on the actual exam. Again, if you look over the released free-response questions on the College Board's website, you will be fine. I would recommend purchasing this book if you are on the edge because it can't hurt to have extra practice, but do keep in mind this is a review book, not a teaching book—do not expect to learn the content from this book alone.Good luck on the AP Exam come May!

Effective, concise, and plenty of practice problems.

I got a concussion late March and another one early April so it was really really difficult for me to study for my AP exams but I really like Barron’s format for reviewing topics. I only got through maybe 1/3 of the book but the stuff I was actually able to review was really helpful, especially their practice questions. They only offer calculus AB at my school but I learned BC on the side from a friend maybe a month before AP exams and the book has great practice questions for the BC topics I actually got to. I ended up getting a 4 with an AB subscore 5, which is mostly accredited to my Calc teacher. BUT, overall I loved the format of this review book and it’s practice questions.

The book is good if you just need to brush up on what you know. I wouldn't recomend the book for self-study. The author is more interested in teaching you what to do and not why you do it.

This was was absolutely essential to prepare for the AP test. Thanks to this book, I was able to easily get a 5 on the BC exam, even though my high school class only taught the AB portion of the material.

This is helping me study so much. I recommend the CD-ROM version because it gives you more study options. What I like about Barron's is that it gives you a challenge and prepares you excellently for the AP test. Only time will tell to see if this product paid off (I gotta take the test still).

Just recently bought this book to prep for my Calculus BC class in the fall for some summer prep. Overall, the book has great practice problems ranging from easy ones for a quick refresher to hard ones. The thing I absolutely detest about this book is the explanation. Yes, they have the right answers and show some steps, but no word explanations (rarely) and skip a lot of steps. I ended have to look up the steps more in depth in Symolab and it can take me some 20-40 minutes to actually get the problem simply because Barron's cannot list out the steps more in depth. I imagine this would be good if you are just reviewing and supplementing, but as a book to learn like me, I would say any website online is better than this. Will update on how this book helped me with my actual AP exam and if it is good as a supplement! (:

I really like this book since it is basically a calc textbook with a bunch of examples. This helped me get a 5 on my ap exam