AP Exams are standardized exams designed to measure how well you’ve mastered the content and skills of a specific AP course. Most AP courses have an end-of-year paper-and-pencil exam, but a few courses have different ways to assess what you’ve learned—for example, AP Art and Design students submit a portfolio of work for scoring.
Each of the 38 exams has its own unique requirements; however, almost all of the exams—paper and pencil and digital—have the following things in common.
- Most exams are 2–3 hours long.
- The first part of the exam usually consists of multiple-choice questions.
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- You will choose 1 of 4–5 answer choices for each question and use a pencil to bubble in your choice on your AP answer sheet for paper and pencil exams.
- You’ll enter your answers in the exam application for digital AP Exams and AP Chinese and AP Japanese Language and Culture Exams.
- Your total exam score on the multiple-choice section is based only on the number of questions answered correctly. You won’t receive or lose points for incorrect answers or unanswered questions.
- The second part of the exam usually consists of free-response questions that require you to generate your own responses. Depending on the exam, your responses could be in the form of an essay, a solution to a problem, or a spoken response.
- For paper and pencil exams: In most cases, you’ll be writing your response in pen in the free-response exam booklet.
- For digital exams and AP Chinese and AP Japanese Language and Culture Exams: You’ll type your responses in the exam application on your computer.