Aim for FivePrecalculus

Exam guide

The AP® Precalculus 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 55 minutes
How you take it
Hybrid digital: multiple choice in the Bluebook testing app, free response handwritten in a paper booklet.
Calculator
A graphing calculator is required for some parts and not allowed in others. Bluebook has one built in for the parts that need it.

See every exam on one page in the 2027 exam calendar.

New

What's new for the May 2027 exam

College Board changed 4 things about the Precalculus exam. Open one to see what it means for you.

  • Multiple choice has 42 questions, with less time for Part A

    Part A (no calculator) goes from 28 questions in 80 minutes to 29 in 65, and Part B (graphing calculator) goes from 12 questions to 13.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED clarification and guidance, p. 5 (Exam Overview))

  • More time for free response

    Each part of the free-response section now gets 35 minutes instead of 30.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED clarification and guidance, p. 5 (Exam Overview))

  • Free-response Question 2 is restructured

    In Question 2, Part B (iii) was removed, and Part C now covers more.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED clarification and guidance, p. 5 (Sample FRQs))

  • Open or closed intervals aren't tested

    Telling open intervals from closed ones, when saying where a function is increasing or decreasing, is now outside the scope of the course and exam.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED clarification and guidance, p. 2)

Updated October 3, 2026 from College Board's pages. All 2027 exam changes

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Precalculus exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choicePart A: 29 questions, no calculator. Part B: 13 questions, graphing calculator needed for some.42 questions1 hour 45 minutesabout 63%
Free responsePart A: 2 questions with a graphing calculator. Part B: 2 questions without one.4 questions1 hour 10 minutesabout 37%

What's on the exam

College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest are Unit 1, Polynomial and Rational Functions (30–40%) and Unit 2, Exponential and Logarithmic Functions (25–40%).

  1. Unit 1Polynomial and Rational Functions30–40%
  2. Unit 2Exponential and Logarithmic Functions25–40%
  3. Unit 3Trigonometric and Polar Functions30–35%
  4. Unit 4Functions Involving Parameters, Vectors, and MatricesNot on the AP exam

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 Precalculus 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® Precalculus scores in 2026, percent of students
Score of 5
29%
Score of 4
29%
Score of 3
24%
Score of 2
11%
Score of 1
7%

Scores of 3 or higher (82% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.

In 2026, 82% of students scored 3 or higher, and 29% got a 5. The most common score was a 5.

In 2025, 253,596 students took the exam. 80.8% scored 3 or higher, 28.1% got a 5, and the average score was 3.55. College Board hasn't published the 2026 number of students or average score yet.

The 2027 exam has some changes (see what's new above), so these scores came from a slightly different exam.

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

Is AP® Precalculus hard?

Judging by pass rates alone, Precalculus is one of the easier exams to pass. In 2026, 82% of students scored 3 or higher: tied for the 2nd highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 29% got a 5, the 2nd highest share of 5s.

Precalculus covers functions in depth: polynomial, rational, exponential, logarithmic and trig functions.

Parts of the exam don't allow a calculator, so you need to be comfortable doing algebra by hand.

Unit 4 isn't on the exam, so focus on Units 1 to 3.

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.