Aim for FiveCybersecurity

Exam guide

The AP® Cybersecurity 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 10 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.

New

What's new for the May 2027 exam

College Board changed 3 things about the Cybersecurity exam. Open one to see what it means for you.

  • A brand-new course, with its first exam in May 2027

    AP Cybersecurity starts in the 2026–27 school year, and its first exam is Wednesday, May 5, 2027. Since the course is new, College Board's course and exam description is the best guide to what's tested.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · AP Career Kickstart timeline (May 2027))

  • Fully digital, with one long free-response question

    The exam is 2 hours 10 minutes in Bluebook: 60 multiple choice questions in 80 minutes (70% of your score), then one 50-minute question (30%). In that question you study information about one device, like its firewall rules, file permissions and logs, to find security problems and signs of an attack.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · Exam Overview, Sections I and II)

  • Questions are weighted by skill, not by unit

    The multiple choice section tests all five units, split between three skills: analyzing risk, reducing risk and detecting attacks, each 25–40% of the section.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · Course and exam description, Exam Information, p. 147)

Updated October 5, 2026 from College Board's pages. All 2027 exam changes

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Cybersecurity exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choiceSingle questions and short sets of 2 to 4 about the same situation.60 questions1 hour 20 minutes70%
Free responseYou look at information about one device, like its firewall rules, file permissions and logs, to spot security problems and signs of an attack and say how to fix them.1 question50 minutes30%

What's on the exam

The units build skills you use across the whole exam, so College Board doesn't weight the exam by unit.

  1. Unit 1Introduction to Security
  2. Unit 2Securing Spaces
  3. Unit 3Securing Networks
  4. Unit 4Securing Devices
  5. Unit 5Securing Applications and Data

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 Cybersecurity score calculator with your practice test results. For the 1 to 5 scale and college credit, see how AP scores work.

Score distribution

Cybersecurity's first exam is in May 2027, so College Board hasn't published any scores yet. They usually come out in July, and we'll add them here.

Is AP® Cybersecurity hard?

Cybersecurity is a new course, and its questions are weighted by skill: analyzing risk, reducing risk and spotting attacks.

The one free-response question is long: you look at a device's settings and logs to find security problems and say how to fix them.

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.