Exam guide
The AP® Comparative Government and Politics 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 1 (usually morning). Your AP coordinator sets the exact start time.
- Length
- 2 hours 30 minutes
- How you take it
- Fully digital: you answer everything in the Bluebook testing app.
- Calculator
- No 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 Comparative Government exam for 2027. Every course's changes
See College Board's list (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED clarifications, p. 1: only front matter, resource links and Progress Check wording)
How the exam is set up
| Section | Questions | Time | Share of score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multiple choiceSingle questions, plus short sets on a chart or table and on a text. | 55 questions | 1 hour | 50% |
| Free responseExplaining a concept, analyzing data, comparing two of the six course countries, and an argument essay. | 4 questions | 1 hour 30 minutes | 50% |
What's on the exam
College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest is Unit 2, Political Institutions (22–33%).
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 Comparative Government 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
- Score of 5
- 15%
- Score of 4
- 22%
- Score of 3
- 33%
- Score of 2
- 18%
- Score of 1
- 12%
Scores of 3 or higher (70% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.
In 2026, 70% of students scored 3 or higher, and 15% got a 5. The most common score was a 3.
In 2025, 27,150 students took the exam. 71.8% scored 3 or higher, 16.3% got a 5, and the average score was 3.16. College Board hasn't published the 2026 number of students or average score yet.
Source: College Board's AP Comparative Government and Politics score distributions. Percentages are College Board's, rounded, so they may not add to exactly 100. Compare every course.
Is AP® Comparative Government and Politics hard?
Judging by pass rates alone, Comparative Government is about in the middle. In 2026, 70% of students scored 3 or higher: the 16th highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 15% got a 5, tied for the 18th highest share of 5s.
Comparative Government asks you to know six countries well (the United Kingdom, Mexico, Russia, Iran, China and Nigeria) and to compare how their governments work.
Big ideas, like what makes a government legitimate or how elections are run, can feel abstract at first, so learn the terms and then practice using them with each country.
Half your score is free response, including a question comparing two of the six countries and an argument essay.
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
- Practice examA full, timed multiple choice section: 55 questions, weighted by unit like the real one.
- Score calculatorPut in your practice results to see roughly what score they'd earn.
- Practice by unitExam-style multiple choice for each unit, with every answer explained.
- Free-response practiceQuestions like the ones on the exam, with a rubric and a model answer.
- Must-know sheetYour one-page cram sheet: the facts and terms to know cold on exam day.
- FlashcardsThe terms and ideas for every unit.
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.
- AP Comparative Government and Politics exam page (College Board)
- 2027 AP Exam Dates (College Board)
- Past AP Comparative Government and Politics Score Distributions (College Board)