Aim for FiveAfrican American Studies

Unit guides

AP® African American Studies

Unit guides with several great videos for every topic, flashcards, and exam-style practice questions with every answer explained.

Your exam:

Get a week-by-week study plan to exam day →

No format changes for the May 2027 exam

College Board hasn't announced changes to the African American Studies exam for 2027. Every course's changes

See College Board's list (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · AP African American Studies row, Most Recent Change column)

4 units · 74 topics · 420 videos

Study and practice

  • Flashcards

    153 cards with the terms and ideas you need to know cold. The ones you find hard come back sooner.

    Study flashcards

  • Multiple choice practice

    347 exam-style questions, timed like the real exam, with every answer explained.

    Practice questions

  • Practice exam

    The whole multiple choice section: 60 questions in 1 hour 10 minutes, weighted by unit like the real exam. A fresh mix every time.

    Take a practice exam

  • Must-know sheet

    The facts, rules and terms to know cold on exam day, on one page. Filter it by unit, or print it.

    Open the sheet

  • Free-response practice

    20 free-response questions like the ones on the exam. Score your answer with the rubric and a model answer, or sign in for free AI scoring.

    Practice free response

Pick a unit

  • Unit 1

    20–25% of exam

    Origins of the African Diaspora

    11 topics · 64 videos

    • African American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that grew out of Black student activism
    • Africa's varied geography shaped where people settled and what they traded
    • Early African states grew rich and powerful from iron, gold and long-distance trade
    • Many Africans blended Islam or Christianity with older local beliefs
    • Africans were part of a connected world well before the transatlantic slave trade began
    Open unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora

  • Unit 2

    30–35% of exam

    Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance

    24 topics · 127 videos

    • The transatlantic slave trade forced more than 12.5 million Africans, mostly from West and West Central Africa, across the Atlantic
    • Laws like partus sequitur ventrem and the slave codes made slavery race-based, lifelong and inherited
    • Enslaved people resisted constantly, through revolts, escape, maroon communities and everyday acts
    • Black writers, speakers and artists used narratives, speeches, songs and photographs to fight slavery
    • Black Americans debated whether to claim full citizenship in the United States or seek freedom elsewhere
    Open unit 2: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance

  • Unit 3

    20–25% of exam

    The Practice of Freedom

    18 topics · 104 videos

    • Reconstruction expanded Black citizenship and political power, but much of it was rolled back after 1877
    • Jim Crow laws, disenfranchisement and racial violence marked the period scholars call the nadir
    • Black communities built their own institutions: churches, HBCUs, clubs, businesses and the press
    • Leaders debated the best path to racial uplift and equality
    • The New Negro movement and the Harlem Renaissance used art and scholarship to define Black identity
    • Migration from the South and from the Caribbean reshaped Black communities and culture
    Open unit 3: The Practice of Freedom

  • Unit 4

    20–25% of exam

    Movements and Debates

    21 topics · 125 videos

    • Black freedom struggles in the United States were linked to anticolonial movements in Africa and the Caribbean
    • Civil rights organizations used nonviolent direct action and the courts to end legal segregation
    • Black Power stressed self-determination, self-defense and racial pride
    • Black feminists showed how race, gender and class work together
    • Black music, film, sports and science have shaped American life and politics
    Open unit 4: Movements and Debates

About the exam

The basics of the 2027 African American Studies exam, from College Board's official exam page.

AP® African American Studies exam

Date
, session 2 (usually afternoon)
Length
2 hours 45 minutes
How you take it
Fully digital: every answer in Bluebook
Multiple choice
60 questions, 1 hour 10 minutes, 60% of your scoreSets of questions about a source or a pair of sources.
Project question
1 question, 10 minutes, 1.5% of your scoreA written answer about a source you used in your course project.
Short answer
3 questions, 40 minutes, 18% of your scoreOne on a text source, one on a visual source and one on a course theme with no source.
Document-based question
1 essay using 5 documents, 45 minutes, 12% of your score
Course project
A project done in class, not on exam day, 8.5% of your scoreYour teacher scores your presentation and oral defense with College Board's rubric.
Calculator
No calculator.
Official exam page for AP® African American Studies (College Board)

Guides to the exam

  • What's new on the 2027 AP® exams

    Every change College Board has announced for the May 2027 exams, course by course: question types, timing, scoring and digital testing, plus what's coming next.

  • How AP® scores work

    What each score from 1 to 5 means, how your score is worked out, when scores come out, and how to find out what credit a college gives.

  • The AP® exam format

    How digital testing in Bluebook works, what the multiple choice and free response sections are like, the calculator rules, and each course's exam at a glance.

  • How to study for an AP® exam

    A realistic plan from three months out to exam day, and how to use unit guides, videos, flashcards and practice questions to raise your score.

  • The 2027 AP® exam calendar

    Every 2027 exam date from College Board's official schedule, plus late testing, score release and other deadlines to put in your calendar.

  • AP® exam questions, answered

    Short answers to the questions students ask most: what the exams cost, whether you can retake one, who sees your scores, and how to use this site.