How the AP Chemistry Test Is Scored

On the multiple-choice portion of the test, there are 75 questions. Scores are determined according to the following formula  

The reason for the strange equation is to prevent wild guessing. Take, for example, a student who bubbled in the same letter for every question. To be safe, she chooses C because it is in the middle of the five choices. On a test of 75 questions, with five possible responses (A-E) for each question, chances are that 15 of them will actually be C (15 will also be A, 15 will be B, etc.). That means that the student will have gotten 15 problems correct and 60 incorrect. Plugging these numbers into the equation will give you  

As you can see, this individual could have left all of the answers blank and still gotten the same score. There is no benefit to wild guessing. In Chapter 2, you will learn some techniques to take the wild out of guessing. 

Once your multiple-choice and free-response scores have been calculated, each score will be used to calculate your composite score. This score ranges from 0 to 5, according to the scale shown below. Note the percentage of students receiving each score  

AP Grade Qualification Percent of students earning this score (from 1999 test) 

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