AP Psychology Exam Guide — Format, Sections, Scoring & Registration

AP Psychology — Exam Guide

Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology is College Board’s college-level psychology course and exam for high school students, administered each May at participating schools. This guide explains the exam exactly as College Board’s published course and exam description presents it.

Exam format

  • Section I — Multiple Choice: 75 questions in 90 minutes, worth 66.7% of the total score. Each question has four answer choices.
  • Section II — Free Response: 2 questions in 70 minutes, worth 33.3% of the total score — one Article Analysis Question (AAQ) and one Evidence-Based Question (EBQ), applying research methods and concepts to provided sources.
  • Total testing time: 2 hours 40 minutes, plus breaks and administrative time.

Content domains

  • Biological Bases of Behavior — neurons and the nervous system, the brain, sensation and perception, states of consciousness, genetics, and the endocrine system.
  • Cognition — memory, thinking, language, intelligence, and problem solving.
  • Development and Learning — lifespan development, classical and operant conditioning, and observational learning.
  • Social Psychology and Personality — social psychology, personality theories and assessment, motivation, and emotion.
  • Mental and Physical Health — psychological disorders, their treatment, health psychology, and positive psychology.
  • Scientific Foundations — research methods, ethics, and statistics run through the whole course and anchor the free-response section.

Scoring

  • AP scores are reported on the 1–5 scale in July. There is no pass mark set by College Board.
  • Colleges and universities set their own credit and placement policies; many grant credit at scores of 3 or above (a score of 3 is described by College Board as “qualified”).
  • Section I is machine-scored with no penalty for wrong answers, so no question should be left blank.

Registration and fees

  • Students register through their school’s AP coordinator in the fall; exams are ordered by the school and taken at the school (or an authorized site) on the national May test date. Fees and deadlines are set by College Board — confirm the current schedule with your AP coordinator.
  • This PassProfessor course practices Section I only. It does not replace your school course, and it does not enroll you in the exam.

How PassProfessor practice fits in

Our AP Psychology course gives you 723 original multiple-choice practice questions organized by the course’s content areas, 18 chapter drills, and a fixed-form 75-question simulation of Section I at its real count and 90-minute timing. Use College Board’s published free-response questions and scoring guidelines, with your teacher’s feedback, to prepare for Section II. Start with the free sample questions to see how the bank is organized.

The program: AP Psychology Exam Prep gives you the full 723-question practice bank for $9 — the complete 75-question timed simulation of the multiple-choice section, chapter drills for every content area, and a free 12-question sample to start. See the full program and enroll.