On the AP Calculus exam, students lose a fraction of a point for each multiple-choice question that they get wrong. This means random guessing is not an effective strategy for the exam. However, if you can eliminate even a single choice for a question, the odds begin to tip in your favor should you guess. When you cannot eliminate any of the choices, skip the question so you do not lose any points.
Many students assume that the exam questions are placed in order of difficulty, with the easiest questions first and the more difficult ones at the end of each section. However, the questions in both the multiple-choice and free-response sections are placed randomly, so no one section is more difficult than another. Therefore, you should not spend too much time trying to work out early problems if you are having difficulty with them. Attempt each question, and if you find yourself unable to solve it, move on. When you have completed all of the questions that you can readily answer, go back to those that stumped you. Aim to spend approximately 15 minutes on each free-response question and two to three minutes on each multiple-choice question. Utilizing this strategy, you will be able to make better use of your time and answer as many questions as possible.
Some questions on the AP Calculus test have multiple parts. If you do not know how to solve part (a), do not skip the entire question. Try your best to solve the first part, even if you come up with the incorrect answer. You likely will not receive any credit for it, but if you follow the correct steps to solve the rest of the problem, you will not be penalized again for coming up with the wrong answer for the first part. Instead, you will get credit for using the proper steps to solve the other parts of the problem.
When solving a problem, show all the necessary work to answer the question. Students are graded on their knowledge of how to solve the problems, not just on their ability to get the right answer. Because of this, you do not have to get the correct answer to be awarded points for your work. Even if you do not know how to solve a problem to its conclusion, write out all the steps that you do know, so the grader can award partial credit.