Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry (also known as AP Chem) is a course and examination offered by the

College Board The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...

as a part of the

Advanced Placement Program Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board. AP offers undergraduate university-level curricula and examinations to high school students. Colleges and universities in the US and elsewh ...

to give American and

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

high school students the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and earn

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

-level credits at certain colleges and universities. The AP Chemistry Exam has the lowest test participation rate out of all AP courses, with around half of AP Chemistry students taking the exam.

Course

AP Chemistry is a course geared toward students with interests in chemical biologies, as well as any of the biological sciences. The course aims to prepare students to take the AP Chemistry exam toward the end of the academic year. AP Chemistry covers most introductory general chemistry topics (excluding

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

), including: * Reactions **

Chemical equilibrium In a chemical reaction, chemical equilibrium is the state in which both the Reagent, reactants and Product (chemistry), products are present in concentrations which have no further tendency to change with time, so that there is no observable chan ...

Chemical kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is different from chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in which a ...

Stoichiometry Stoichiometry () is the relationships between the masses of reactants and Product (chemistry), products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is based on the law of conservation of mass; the total mass of reactants must ...

Thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, Work (thermodynamics), work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed b ...

Electrochemistry Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between Electric potential, electrical potential difference and identifiable chemical change. These reactions involve Electron, electrons moving via an electronic ...

** Reaction types * States of matter ** Gases,

Ideal gas An ideal gas is a theoretical gas composed of many randomly moving point particles that are not subject to interparticle interactions. The ideal gas concept is useful because it obeys the ideal gas law, a simplified equation of state, and is ...

es and Kinetic theory **

Liquid Liquid is a state of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. Liquids adapt to the shape of their container and are nearly incompressible, maintaining their volume even under pressure. The density of a liquid is usually close to th ...

s **

Solid Solid is a state of matter where molecules are closely packed and can not slide past each other. Solids resist compression, expansion, or external forces that would alter its shape, with the degree to which they are resisted dependent upon the ...

s ** Solutions * Structure of matter **

Atomic theory Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. The definition of the word "atom" has changed over the years in response to scientific discoveries. Initially, it referred to a hypothetical concept of ...

, including evidence for atomic theory ** Chemical bonding, including intermolecular forces (IMF) ** Nuclear chemistry (removed for May 2014 test) **

Molecular geometry Molecular geometry is the three-dimensional arrangement of the atoms that constitute a molecule. It includes the general shape of the molecule as well as bond lengths, bond angles, torsional angles and any other geometrical parameters that det ...

Molecular model A molecular model is a physical model of an atomistic system that represents molecules and their processes. They play an important role in understanding chemistry and generating and testing hypotheses. The creation of mathematical models of mole ...

s **

Mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...

*Laboratory and chemical calculations ** Thermochemistry **

Gas laws The laws describing the behaviour of gases under fixed pressure, volume, amount of gas, and absolute temperature conditions are called gas laws. The basic gas laws were discovered by the end of the 18th century when scientists found out that re ...

calculations

Exam weighting

Exam

The annual AP Chemistry examination, which is typically administered in May, is divided into two major sections (multiple-choice questions and free response essays).

Old test (2013 and earlier)

The old test was composed of two sections: a multiple-choice section consisting of 75 questions with five answer choices each, and a free-response section consisting of six essay prompts that required the authoring of chemical equations, solution of problems, and development of thoughtful essays in response to hypothetical scenarios. * Section I, the multiple-choice portion, did allow the use of a

calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-si ...

in 2023 exams, with additional reference material, other than a periodic table. Each question contained five answer choices or four. 90 minutes were allotted for the completion of Section I. Section I covered the breadth of the curriculum. * Section II, the free response section, was divided into two sections: Part A, requiring the completion of three problems, and Part B, also containing three problems. Part A, lasting 55 minutes, allowed the use of calculators, Part B, lasting 40 minutes, also allowed for calculators. The first problem in Part A concerned equilibrium related to solubility,

acids An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis acid. The first category of acids are the ...

and bases, or pressure/concentration. The first question of Part B was a chemical equation question in which 3 scenarios were presented and the student was required to work all 3 scenarios, authoring a balanced net ionic chemical equation for each scenario and answering questions about the equations and scenarios. If time permitted, students may have edited their responses from Part A during the time allotted for responding to Part B, though without the use of a calculator. The student needed to have completed all six questions. While the use of calculators was prohibited during Section I and Section II Part B, a periodic table, a list of selected standard reduction potentials, and two pages of equations and conventions are available for use during the entirety of Section II.

New test (2014 and later)

The 2014 AP Chemistry exam was the first administration of a redesigned test as a result of a redesigning of the AP Chemistry course. The exam format is now different from the previous years, with 60 multiple choice questions (now with only four answer choices per question), 3 long free response questions, and 4 short free response questions. The new exam has a focus on longer, more in-depth, and lab-based questions. The penalty for incorrect answers on the multiple choice section was also removed. More detailed information can be found at the related link.

Topics

*Structure and Matter, 20% * States of Matter, 20% * Reactions, 35–40% * Descriptive Chemistry, 10–25% * Laboratory, 5–10%

Grade distribution

The score distributions since 2007 were:

Prerequisites

The College Board recommends successful completion of high school chemistry and Algebra 2; however, requirement of this may differ from school to school. AP Chemistry usually requires knowledge of Algebra 2; however, some schools allow students to take the course concurrently with this class. The requirement of regular or honors level high school chemistry may also be waived, but usually requires completion of a special assignment or exam, or completion of high school chemistry alongside AP Chemistry.

References

External links

*
Test format change in 2007
{{Glossaries of science and engineering Chemistry education Advanced Placement Standardized tests