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Exam guide

The AP® Biology exam

When it is, how it's set up, what's on it, how students have scored, and a straight answer on how hard it is.

Your exam:

Checked against College Board's website in October 2026.

When is the 2027 exam?

Date
, session 2 (usually afternoon). Your AP coordinator sets the exact start time.
Length
3 hours
How you take it
Hybrid digital: multiple choice in the Bluebook testing app, free response handwritten in a paper booklet.
Calculator
A four-function (with square root) or scientific calculator. Graphing calculators aren't allowed in 2027. Bluebook has a built-in scientific calculator.

See every exam on one page in the 2027 exam calendar.

No format changes for the May 2027 exam

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

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

Changed in the last two years (1)
  • An updated course frameworkMay 2026

    College Board released an updated course framework in fall 2025, so review books from before then may not match the current units and topics.

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

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Biology exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choice60 questions1 hour 30 minutes50%
Free response6 questions (2 long, 4 short)1 hour 30 minutes50%

What's on the exam

College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest is Unit 7, Natural Selection (13–20%).

  1. Unit 1Chemistry of Life8–11%
  2. Unit 2Cells10–13%
  3. Unit 3Cellular Energetics12–16%
  4. Unit 4Cell Communication and Cell Cycle10–15%
  5. Unit 5Heredity8–11%
  6. Unit 6Gene Expression and Regulation12–16%
  7. Unit 7Natural Selection13–20%
  8. Unit 8Ecology10–15%

How it's scored

Multiple choice is scored by computer, and a wrong answer costs you nothing, so answer every question. The free-response answers are scored in June by AP teachers and college professors, using a rubric.

Each section's points are weighted by its share of the score, added up, and turned into a score from 1 to 5. College Board doesn't publish exactly how many points each score needs, and the cutoffs can change a little from year to year.

Want a rough idea of where you stand? Try the Biology score calculator with your practice test results. For the 1 to 5 scale and college credit, see how AP scores work.

How students scored in 2026

AP® Biology scores in 2026, percent of students
Score of 5
15%
Score of 4
25%
Score of 3
31%
Score of 2
21%
Score of 1
8%

Scores of 3 or higher (71% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.

In 2026, 71% of students scored 3 or higher, and 15% got a 5. The most common score was a 3.

In 2025, 287,232 students took the exam. 70.4% scored 3 or higher, 18.9% got a 5, and the average score was 3.24. College Board hasn't published the 2026 number of students or average score yet.

Source: College Board's AP Biology score distributions. Percentages are College Board's, rounded, so they may not add to exactly 100. Compare every course.

Is AP® Biology hard?

Judging by pass rates alone, Biology is about in the middle. In 2026, 71% of students scored 3 or higher: the 15th highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 15% got a 5, tied for the 18th highest share of 5s.

Biology covers a lot, from molecules and cells to evolution and ecosystems.

The exam leans on experiments and data: many questions give you a graph, table or experiment you haven't seen and ask what it shows.

Half your score is free response, six questions in 1 hour 30 minutes, including questions where you analyze data and work with an experiment.

Pass rates show how students did, not exactly how hard the material is. They also depend on who takes each exam and how much they prepared. See every course's pass rate.

Get ready on this site

Where these facts come from

College Board runs the exams and can change the rules. If something here doesn't match their site, trust their site.