AP Biology

Advanced Placement (AP) Biology (also known as AP Bio) is an Advanced Placement biology course and exam offered by the College Board in the United States. For the 2012–2013 school year, the College Board unveiled a new curriculum with a greater focus on "scientific practices".[1]

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This course is designed for students who wish to pursue an interest in the life sciences. The College Board recommends successful completion of high school biology and high school chemistry[2] before commencing AP Biology, although the actual prerequisites vary from school to school and from state to state. This course, nevertheless, is considered very challenging and one of the most difficult AP classes, as shown with AP Finals grade distributions.

Topic outline

The exam covers the following 8 units. The percentage indicates the portion of the multiple-choice section of the exam focused on each content area:[3]

Topic Percent
Chemistry of Life 8-11%
Cell Structure and Function 10-13%
Cellular Energetics 12-16%
Cell Communication and Cell Cycle 10-15%
Heredity 8-11%
Gene Expression and Regulation 12-16%
Natural Selection 13-20%
Ecology 10-15%

The course is based on and tests six skills, called scientific practices which include:

Topic Percent
Concept Explanation 8-11%
Visual Representations 10-13%
Question and Method 12-16%
Representing and Describing Data 10-15%
Statistical Tests and Data Analysis 8-11%
Argumentation 12-16%

In addition to the topics above, students are required to be familiar with general lab procedure. Students should know how to collect data, analyze data to form conclusions, and apply those conclusions.

Exam

Students are allowed to use a four-function, scientific, or graphing calculator.[4]

The exam has two sections: a 90 minute multiple choice section and a 90 minute free response section. There are 60 multiple choice questions and six free responses, two long and four short. Both sections are worth 50% of the score.

Score distribution
Score 2013[5] 2014[6] 2015[7] 2016[8] 2017[9] 2018[10] 2019[11] 2020[12] 2021[13] 2022[14] 2023[15]
5 5.5% 6.6% 6.4% 6.6% 6.4% 7.1% 7.2% 9.5% 7.4% 15.0% 14%
4 21.6% 22.4% 22.1% 21% 21% 21.5% 22.2% 22.7% 19.4% 23.1% 23%
3 36.2% 35.2% 35.9% 33.6% 36.7% 32.9% 35.3% 36.9% 32.4% 29.7% 27%
2 29.3% 27.1% 27.5% 28.8% 27.5% 28.5% 26.6% 24.1% 30.0% 21.6% 24%
1 7.4% 8.7% 8.2% 10.1% 8.4% 10% 8.8% 6.9% 10.8% 10.5% 12%
% of scores 3 or higher 63.3% 64.2% 64.4% 61.3% 64.1% 61.5% 64.7% 69.1% 59.2% 67.9% 64%
Mean 2.88 2.91 2.91 2.85 2.90 2.87 2.93 3.04 2.83 3.11 3.03
Standard deviation 1.01 1.05 1.04 1.07 1.03 1.08 1.06 1.06 1.09 1.21
Number of students 203,189 213,294 223,479 238,080 254,270 259,663 260,816 233,444 230,527 237,338

Commonly used textbooks
  • Biology, AP Edition by Sylvia Mader (2012, hardcover ISBN 0076620042)
  • Life: The Science of Biology (Sadava, Heller, Orians, Purves, and Hillis, ISBN 978-0-7167-7671-0)
  • Campbell Biology AP Ninth Edition (Reece, Urry, Cain, Wasserman, Minorsky, and Andrew Jackson ISBN 978-0131375048)

See also

References
  1. AP Biology Curriculum Framework
  2. "AP Biology". Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  3. "AP Biology – AP Students | College Board". apstudents.collegeboard.org. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
  4. "AP Biology". Archived from the original on 1 April 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  5. Total Registration. "2013 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  6. Total Registration. "2014 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  7. Total Registration. "2015 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  8. Total Registration. "2016 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2016-07-01.
  9. Total Registration. "2017 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  10. "Student Score Distributions, AP Exams - May 2018" (PDF). The College Board. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  11. "STUDENT SCORE DISTRIBUTIONS" (PDF). Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  12. "STUDENT SCORE DISTRIBUTIONS" (PDF). Retrieved June 9, 2021.
  13. "STUDENT SCORE DISTRIBUTIONS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 August 2022. Retrieved Aug 26, 2023.
  14. "STUDENT SCORE DISTRIBUTIONS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 August 2023. Retrieved Aug 26, 2023.
  15. Total Registration (2023-06-23). "2023 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
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