Your first year of AP Calculus: the one-page checklist

1. Before the year starts

College Board's own six steps, in the order it lists them:

• Explore your course's pages. The Course and Exam Description (CED) is the core document for the subject; the course page also carries exam dates, AP Classroom information and professional-learning links.
• Complete the AP Course Audit (required). It is the authorisation to offer the course, and it is what unlocks AP Classroom and AP Program email. While you are there: the Syllabus Development Guide, sample syllabi, recommended textbook list.
• Sign in to AP Classroom. Unit guides for every topic and skill, progress checks, a question bank to build tests from, and practice exams to assign. It opens 1 July for teachers who have completed the Course Audit.
• Take the professional learning. An AP Summer Institute before the year starts is the fullest option; workshops run during the year.
• Join the AP Community. Where a first-year question gets answered fastest.
• Learn about AP score reports. So July's results make sense when they land.

2. The eight AB units and their weighting

Unit exam weighting (multiple-choice), as listed on the AP Calculus AB course page:

• Unit 1 · Limits and Continuity 10–15%
• Unit 2 · Differentiation: Definition and Fundamental Properties 10–15%
• Unit 3 · Differentiation: Composite, Implicit, and Inverse Functions 5–10%
• Unit 4 · Contextual Applications of Differentiation 10–15%
• Unit 5 · Analytical Applications of Differentiation 15–20%
• Unit 6 · Integration and Accumulation of Change 15–20%
• Unit 7 · Differential Equations 5–10%
• Unit 8 · Applications of Integration 10–15%

3. The exam, at a glance

The format is the same for AP Calculus AB and BC. It is a hybrid digital exam: multiple choice and the free-response questions are in Bluebook; free-response answers are handwritten in paper booklets.

• Section I — multiple choice: 42 questions, 1 hour 40 minutes, 50% of the score. Part A: 29 questions, 62 minutes, no calculator. Part B: 13 questions, 38 minutes, graphing calculator required.
• Section II — free response: 6 questions, 1 hour 30 minutes, 50% of the score. Part A: 2 questions, 30 minutes, graphing calculator required. Part B: 4 questions, 60 minutes, no calculator.

4. Dates, and the AB-or-BC question

• 1 July — AP Classroom opens, for teachers who have completed the Course Audit.
• Monday 10 May 2027 — AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC exams.
• AB or BC? Every topic in the eight AB units above is also in BC. BC adds Unit 9 (parametric equations, polar coordinates and vector-valued functions) and Unit 10 (infinite sequences and series).

The number of multiple-choice questions and the timing on the AB and BC exams were updated effective with the May 2027 exams; course content has not changed. For the details, see the 2027 exam changes and Desmos on Bluebook.

• Sources (all checked 14 October 2026) — AP Central: Teaching AP for the First Time? (the six steps; the Course Audit; AP Classroom opening on 1 July; AP Community; Summer Institutes); AP Calculus AB course page (the eight units and their multiple-choice exam weighting; the 2026-27 clarifications and the statement that course content has not changed); AP Calculus AB exam page (the hybrid digital format, and the question counts and part timings — identical on the AP Calculus BC exam page); 2027 AP Exam Dates (Calculus AB and BC on Monday 10 May 2027); The Difference Between AP Calculus AB and BC (BC as a superset of AB; Units 9 and 10).

calc21.com/new-to-calculus-checklist · checked 14 October 2026 · sources: AP Central (College Board)