Aim for FiveMicroeconomics

Exam guide

The AP® Microeconomics 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
2 hours 10 minutes
How you take it
Hybrid digital: multiple choice in the Bluebook testing app, free response handwritten in a paper booklet.
Calculator
A four-function calculator only, on the whole exam. Bluebook has one built in. Scientific and graphing calculators aren't allowed.

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 Microeconomics exam for 2027. Every course's changes

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

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Microeconomics exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choice60 questions1 hour 10 minutes66%
Free responseOne long question and two short ones. You'll draw and label graphs.3 questions1 hour, including a 10-minute reading period33%

What's on the exam

College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest are Unit 2, Supply and Demand (20–25%) and Unit 3, Production, Cost, and the Perfect Competition Model (22–25%).

  1. Unit 1Basic Economic Concepts12–15%
  2. Unit 2Supply and Demand20–25%
  3. Unit 3Production, Cost, and the Perfect Competition Model22–25%
  4. Unit 4Imperfect Competition15–22%
  5. Unit 5Factor Markets10–13%
  6. Unit 6Market Failure and the Role of Government8–13%

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 Microeconomics 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® Microeconomics scores in 2026, percent of students
Score of 5
19%
Score of 4
26%
Score of 3
23%
Score of 2
20%
Score of 1
12%

Scores of 3 or higher (68% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.

In 2026, 68% of students scored 3 or higher, and 19% got a 5. The most common score was a 4.

In 2025, 117,548 students took the exam. 68.2% scored 3 or higher, 21.6% 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 Microeconomics score distributions. Percentages are College Board's, rounded, so they may not add to exactly 100. Compare every course.

Is AP® Microeconomics hard?

Judging by pass rates alone, Microeconomics is about in the middle. In 2026, 68% of students scored 3 or higher: tied for the 18th highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 19% got a 5, tied for the 11th highest share of 5s.

Microeconomics is about how people and businesses make choices, and it leans on graphs: supply and demand, cost curves, and market types like monopoly.

Supply and demand and production and costs (Units 2 and 3) together make up 42 to 50% of the exam.

In the free response you draw and label graphs, so practice drawing them from memory.

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.