Aim for FivePsychology

Exam guide

The AP® Psychology 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 40 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 Psychology exam for 2027. Every course's changes

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

Changed in the last two years (2)
  • Clearer free-response directions and scoringMay 2026

    In the Article Analysis Question, the study summary now lists several ethical guidelines, and you pick one to identify and describe. In the Evidence-Based Question, the evidence you cite has to be accurate.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (apcentral.collegeboard.org · CED clarifications, pp. 1–2 (Exam Updates))

  • A redesigned course and examMay 2025

    The exam has fewer multiple choice questions, each with 4 answer choices instead of 5, and two new kinds of free-response questions.

    See College Board's announcement (opens in a new tab) (allaccess.collegeboard.org · AP Psychology section)

How the exam is set up

The sections of the 2027 Psychology exam
SectionQuestionsTimeShare of score
Multiple choice75 questions1 hour 30 minutes67%
Free responseAn Article Analysis Question and an Evidence-Based Question.2 questions1 hour 10 minutes33%

What's on the exam

College Board says roughly how much of the exam comes from each unit. The biggest are Unit 1, Biological Bases of Behavior (15–25%), Unit 2, Cognition (15–25%), Unit 3, Development and Learning (15–25%), Unit 4, Social Psychology and Personality (15–25%) and Unit 5, Mental and Physical Health (15–25%).

  1. Unit 1Biological Bases of Behavior15–25%
  2. Unit 2Cognition15–25%
  3. Unit 3Development and Learning15–25%
  4. Unit 4Social Psychology and Personality15–25%
  5. Unit 5Mental and Physical Health15–25%

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 Psychology 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® Psychology scores in 2026, percent of students
Score of 5
15%
Score of 4
35%
Score of 3
24%
Score of 2
18%
Score of 1
8%

Scores of 3 or higher (74% of students) have green bars; 2s and 1s have gray ones. A 3 is where many colleges start to give credit.

In 2026, 74% of students scored 3 or higher, and 15% got a 5. The most common score was a 4.

In 2025, 334,038 students took the exam. 70.5% scored 3 or higher, 14.4% got a 5, and the average score was 3.20. College Board hasn't published the 2026 number of students or average score yet.

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

Is AP® Psychology hard?

Judging by pass rates alone, Psychology is one of the easier exams to pass. In 2026, 74% of students scored 3 or higher: tied for the 9th highest pass rate of the 27 exams on this site. 15% got a 5, tied for the 18th highest share of 5s.

Psychology has a lot of terms and studies to learn, but the exam wants you to apply them to new situations, not just define them.

The two free-response questions ask you to analyze a research article and to make an argument using evidence from sources, so practice reading studies, not just memorizing terms.

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.