AP Precalculus Tutoring for the May Exam
AP Precalculus looks like familiar school algebra, but the exam treats every function family — polynomial, rational, exponential, logarithmic, trigonometric and polar — as a way of describing how quantities change, and moves without warning between graphs, tables, formulas and words. Much of the score comes from parts where no calculator is allowed, and the free-response answers are handwritten, so fluent manipulation and clearly written reasoning count as much as understanding the ideas.
Short answer
AP Precalculus is offered online, one-to-one or in a group class.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 65 per lesson; the group course runs 50 lessons of 90 minutes for USD 1,755, and a class never takes more than 6 students.
Group classes next begin on 18 September 2027.
From USD 65 per lesson
- 2 scored components, from AP Central
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 65 per lesson
How AP Precalculus is assessed
Set and scored by College Board and reported on the 1–5 AP scale. Each university sets its own rule on which scores earn credit or placement. Component names are as College Board prints them.
College Board
AP Precalculus · AP Central exam page
| Component | Share of score | Length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple Choice | 62.5% | 1 hour 45 min | 42 questions in 1 hour 45 minutes. Part A: 29 questions in 65 minutes with no calculator (43.75% of the score); Part B: 13 questions in 40 minutes with a graphing calculator required (18.75%). |
| Section II: Free Response | 37.5% | 1 hour 10 min | 4 questions in 1 hour 10 minutes. Part A (35 minutes, graphing calculator required): Function Concepts and Modeling a Non-Periodic Context; Part B (35 minutes, no calculator): Modeling a Periodic Context and Symbolic Manipulations. Each part is 18.75% of the score, answered by hand in a paper booklet. |
- Hybrid exam: answers are entered in Bluebook for multiple choice and handwritten in a paper booklet for free response.
- 2027 exam date: 11 May 2027.
Checked on 8 October 2026
College Board revises individual exams between years. The exam page linked above is the authority for your sitting.
The AP Precalculus syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Unit 1: Polynomial and Rational Functions (30–40%)
Describing how quantities change with respect to each other · Describing end behavior of polynomial and rational functions · Identifying asymptotes of and holes in the graphs of rational functions · Modeling aspects of scenarios using polynomial and rational functions · Identifying assumptions and limitations of function models
Unit 2: Exponential and Logarithmic Functions (25–40%)
Relating geometric sequences and exponential functions · Modeling data sets with exponential functions · Composing functions and finding inverses · Modeling scenarios with logarithmic functions · Validating a function model using a residual plot
Unit 3: Trigonometric and Polar Functions (30–35%)
Relating right triangle trigonometry to the sine, cosine, and tangent functions · Modeling data and scenarios with sinusoidal functions · Using inverse trigonometric functions to solve trigonometric equations · Graphing functions using polar coordinates · Describing how angles and radii change with respect to each other in a polar graph
Unit 4: Functions Involving Parameters, Vectors, and Matrices (not assessed on the AP Exam)
Describing how quantities change with respect to each other in a parametric function · Graphing conic sections using implicitly defined functions and parametric functions · Using vectors to describe motion of an object · Describing the impact of a transformation matrix on a graphical object · Modeling change in a context using matrices
Where AP Precalculus marks are usually lost
Rounding halfway through a calculation
In the free response, College Board’s directions ask for decimal answers to a stated accuracy, and its 2025 Chief Reader Report records answers that missed it. It also warns that rounding a value midway through a calculation can carry the error into the final answer. Storing constants and intermediate results in the graphing calculator or in Desmos, and rounding only at the end, keeps marks the mathematics had already earned.
Guessing and checking the algebra
The Symbolic Manipulations question is answered without a calculator: rewriting expressions with the laws of exponents and logarithms, using trigonometric identities, solving equations with inverse trigonometric functions. College Board’s readers note that students who guess and check similar multiple-choice questions miss the practice this question needs, and that answers without the steps shown, or equations that are quadratic in an exponential but not recognised as such, lose points.
Losing the context in a model
The modelling questions describe a real situation — in 2025, plays of a song and a vibrating guitar string — and ask for a function whose constants mean something. Students lose marks by turning period and phase shift into the wrong constants, mishandling units or describing a graph loosely when the question asks about its concavity and how its rate of change behaves. Each answer must say what it means in context.
How we teach AP Precalculus
A tutor teaches Precalculus by function family, always with the same questions: how does the output change as the input changes, what happens at the ends of the graph, and what do the constants mean in context? Each family is met as a formula, a graph, a table and a sentence, because the exam switches between them. No-calculator work is practised every week — logarithm and exponent laws, identities, inverse trigonometric functions — with the steps written out. Calculator work is practised on the student’s own approved handheld model or on Desmos as it appears in Bluebook, including storing values and finding every solution in a window. Released free-response questions are answered by hand under time and marked against College Board’s scoring guidelines, so that precise notation and written explanations become habits rather than afterthoughts.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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