Aim for FiveChemistry

Exam guide

The AP® Chemistry 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 15 minutes
How you take it
Hybrid digital: multiple choice in the Bluebook testing app, free response handwritten in a paper booklet.
Calculator
A scientific or graphing calculator, on both sections. Bluebook has both built in.

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 Chemistry exam for 2027. Every course's changes

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

Changed in the last two years (2)
  • Renamed units and a few moved topicsMay 2025

    Some units got new names (Unit 6 is now Thermochemistry, and Unit 9 is Thermodynamics and Electrochemistry), and pH and solubility moved to topic 8.11.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED updates overview, pp. 6–9)

  • A reorganized equation sheetMay 2025

    The equation sheet now follows the order of the course, and it added a table of metric prefixes.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED updates overview, p. 11)

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Chemistry exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choice60 questions1 hour 30 minutes50%
Free response7 questions (3 long, 4 short)1 hour 45 minutes50%

What's on the exam

College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest is Unit 3, Properties of Substances and Mixtures (18–22%).

  1. Unit 1Atomic Structure and Properties7–9%
  2. Unit 2Compound Structure and Properties7–9%
  3. Unit 3Properties of Substances and Mixtures18–22%
  4. Unit 4Chemical Reactions7–9%
  5. Unit 5Kinetics7–9%
  6. Unit 6Thermochemistry7–9%
  7. Unit 7Equilibrium7–9%
  8. Unit 8Acids and Bases11–15%
  9. Unit 9Thermodynamics and Electrochemistry7–9%

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 Chemistry 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® Chemistry scores in 2026, percent of students
Score of 5
15%
Score of 4
31%
Score of 3
30%
Score of 2
18%
Score of 1
6%

Scores of 3 or higher (76% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.

In 2026, 76% of students scored 3 or higher, and 15% got a 5. The most common score was a 4.

In 2025, 168,833 students took the exam. 77.9% scored 3 or higher, 17.9% got a 5, and the average score was 3.36. College Board hasn't published the 2026 number of students or average score yet.

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

Is AP® Chemistry hard?

Judging by pass rates alone, Chemistry is one of the easier exams to pass. In 2026, 76% of students scored 3 or higher: tied for the 5th highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 15% got a 5, tied for the 18th highest share of 5s.

Later units, like equilibrium and acids and bases, build on the atomic structure and bonding you learn early in the course.

It involves many calculations, and you also have to explain your reasoning in words.

Half your score is free response: seven questions in 1 hour 45 minutes.

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.