About the AP Biology Exam

Congratulations! You are about to begin one of the most rigorous AP courses with the final exam. This exam will prove your prowess in biology and help you get into the college of your dreams. We will help you by providing an equally rigorous practice exam course that simulates what you will experience on exam day. First, lets break down what you will find on the exam.

The nuts and bolts of the AP Biology Exam

The AP Biology Exam takes three hours and is broken down into two parts:

1. Multiple Choice Section
1. 100 questions
2. 80 minutes
2. Free Response Section (essay form)
1. 4 questions
2. 100 minutes (broken down into a 10 minute reading period followed with 90 minutes for answering the questions)

Multiple Choice Section

The multiple choice section counts for 60% of your exam grade and with 100 questions in 80 minutes, you must answer each in about 48 seconds to make it through. You can expect the entire gamut of questions, from essential facts to the heavy hitting questions that will require your thoughtful analysis.

Free Response Section

The last section of the exam is a tough one. You will have 10 minutes to read 4 questions, followed by 90 minutes to compose answers in essay format. Your answers must be complete for full credit – they will not accept outlines or unlabeled and unexplained diagrams. This section is worth 40% of your exam score and each question is weighted equally so work strategically. You can expect to have one question regarding molecules and cells, another covering heredity and evolution, and the last two questions covering organisms and populations. The College Board likes to make one of them especially difficult by involving a lab experiment – so expect to analyze and interpret experimental data.

AP Biology Topics

Molecules and Cells (25% of test):

• Chemistry of Life: water, organic molecules in organisms, free energy changes, and enzymes
• Cells: prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, membranes, subcellular organization, and cell cycle and its regulation

• Cellular Energetics: coupled reactions, fermentation and cellular respiration, and photosynthesis

Heredity and Evolution (25% of test):

• Heredity: meiosis and gametogenesis, eukaryotic chromosomes, and inheritance patterns
• Molecular Genetics: RNA and DNA structure and function, gene regulation, mutation, viral structure and replication, and nucleic acid technology and applications
• Evolutionary Biology: early evolution of life, evidence for evolution, and mechanisms of evolution

Organisms and Populations (50% of test):

• Diversity of Organisms: evolutionary patterns, survey of the diversity of life, phylogenetic classification, and evolutionary relationships
• Structure and Function of Plants and Animals: reproduction, growth, and development, structural, physiological, and behavioral adaptations, and response to the environment
• Ecology: population dynamics, communities and ecosystems, and global issues

AP Scoring:

Scoring for AP exams follows a numeric 5 point scale:

5          Extremely well qualified
4          Well qualified
3          Qualified
2          Possibly qualified
1          No recommendation

A score of 5 is equivalent to a college student getting an A grade in the class. A score of 4 is equivalent to a B, and so on. A score of 3 is the minimum required to receive college credit.

The multiple choice section is scored by computer while the free response section is graded by 4 different professors, each responsible for one question. As such, each professor grades the same question across all of the tests – so they become very adept and grading that particular topic.

Tips for the Exam

Multiple Choice Section

The best way to approach this section is to answer all the questions you are comfortable with first. If you find a question (or several) you can’t answer, skip it and move on. There will be time at the end to go back so don’t enter a wrong answer. Also, wrong answers count against you ¼ of a point more than a blank answer – so be careful. Typically, your first gut instinct is usually the right one, so don’t spend time second-guessing yourself. You need to maximize that time.

Multiple choice questions follow 1 of 4 formats:

1. Basic-knowledge questions – your traditional question fact checking or best answer question
2. Elimination-type questions – eliminating false statements about a fact
3. Data-interpretation questions – these questions include a mini-experiment, graph, diagram, or table, then have you answer questions based upon the given data
4. Category questions – typical fact finding and vocabulary questions, which usually include several categories, followed with several questions to match each question to each answer

Free Response Section

This is the essay section we spoke about earlier. To score well, remember to be as thorough in your responses as possible utilizing diagrams if necessary to explain your position. Here are some tips to remember:

1. Stay calm. Remember, you just took a whole semester of advanced biology. You know your stuff.
2. Look out for keywords in the questions such as contrast, explain, or describe.
3. Plan your response and include everything you know about the subject. Be sure to use facts, correct terms, and explanations of why they relate and support the answer.
4. Draw diagrams when necessary to support your answer. Be sure to label all necessary parts.
5. Don’t worry about spelling and grammar – this is a biology exam and they grade only your knowledge on biology.
6. Be sure not to dwell too much on any one single point. Each question has 2 to 3 sub points and the AP graders will be looking for encompassing knowledge on all of it.
7. For the lab question, be sure to include all of the following:
1. Hypothesis
2. Control group
3. Dependent and independent variables
4. Controlled variables
5. Data
6. Supporting calculations
7. Results
8. Conclusion