Calculus AB is designed to be taught over a full high school academic year. It is possible to spend some time on elementary functions and still cover the Calculus AB curriculum within a year. However, if students are to be adequately prepared for the Calculus AB examination, most of the year must be devoted to topics in differential and integral calculus. These topics are the focus of the AP Exam.

This course focuses on the techniques and applications of differential calculus and introduces integral calculus. The goals are to enable students to understand that differentiation is a study of the rate of change of functions and to develop and analyze mathematical models for solving problems. Additionally, students should learn techniques of integration and be able to interpret the meaning of the definite integral in several applications. Topics to be covered include limits, continuity, derivatives of algebraic, logarithmic, exponential, and trigonometric functions, applications of differentiation, Riemann sums, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and techniques and applications of integration.