AP Exam Study App: Flashcards, Quizzes and Typed Practice for Advanced Placement

What the AP exams cover

AP is run by the College Board. There are dozens of subjects across the sciences, maths, history, languages, English and the arts. Most exams have a multiple-choice section and a free-response section, and some include performance tasks submitted during the year. Exams are held in May, and an increasing number of them are taken digitally in the Bluebook app. Scores run from 1 to 5, and what score earns college credit is decided by each college. Check apcentral.collegeboard.org for each course's description, since the content and format differ by subject.

What makes it hard and how to prepare

The challenge is breadth plus writing under time. In history and English you must build an argument from evidence. In science you must explain in precise terms and interpret data. Reading the textbook once will not do. Use the College Board's course and exam description as your checklist, and practise free-response questions against the published scoring guidelines.

Spread your revision over months. Spaced retrieval of key terms and cause-and-effect chains works better than a final week of cramming (Cepeda et al., 2006). Practise free-response answers by writing from memory and then comparing them to the scoring rubric.

A plan using Type to Study

Upload the textbook chapters or your notes for one course. Units become study units, so you can follow the course's own order. Use Read mode for the first pass, Type mode to retype timelines, processes and definitions, and flashcards for the terms. Typed unit quizzes check your answers against key points, which is good practice for short explanations.

Before the exam, run a final exam on your uploaded material with the timer on. It does not use official AP questions or College Board scoring guides. Use the released free-response questions and scoring guidelines for realistic practice.