Aim for FiveComputer Science A

Exam guide

The AP® Computer Science A 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
Fully digital: you answer everything in the Bluebook testing app.
Calculator
No calculator.
Reference sheet
The Java Quick Reference, with the String, Integer, Double, Math, ArrayList, File, Scanner and Object methods you may use. It's built into Bluebook.

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 Computer Science A exam for 2027. Every course's changes

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

Changed in the last two years (1)
  • A revised course frameworkMay 2026

    College Board released a revised course framework in fall 2025, so review books from before then may not match the current units and exam.

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

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Computer Science A exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choiceMostly single questions, with a few short sets about the same code. Each question has 4 answer choices.42 questions1 hour 30 minutes55%
Free responseYou type Java code in Bluebook: methods and control structures, designing a class, data analysis with an ArrayList, and a 2D array.4 questions1 hour 30 minutes45%

What's on the exam

College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest is Unit 4, Data Collections (30–40%).

  1. Unit 1Using Objects and Methods15–25%
  2. Unit 2Selection and Iteration25–35%
  3. Unit 3Class Creation10–18%
  4. Unit 4Data Collections30–40%

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 Computer Science A 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® Computer Science A scores in 2026, percent of students
Score of 5
25%
Score of 4
26%
Score of 3
15%
Score of 2
11%
Score of 1
23%

Scores of 3 or higher (66% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.

In 2026, 66% of students scored 3 or higher, and 25% got a 5. The most common score was a 4.

In 2025, 93,217 students took the exam. 67.2% scored 3 or higher, 25.6% got a 5, and the average score was 3.18. College Board hasn't published the 2026 number of students or average score yet.

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

Is AP® Computer Science A hard?

Judging by pass rates alone, Computer Science A is one of the harder exams to pass. In 2026, 66% of students scored 3 or higher: tied for the 21st highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 25% got a 5, the 3rd highest share of 5s.

Computer Science A is about reading and writing Java code.

In the free response you type code in Bluebook, and you can't run it, so you have to catch your own mistakes by reading carefully.

Data Collections (arrays, ArrayLists and 2D arrays) is the biggest unit, so practice those most.

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.