May 2025 Digital AP Exam Format

College Board announced a new digital Advanced Placement (AP) format for the May 2025 AP exams. While 16 AP exams will be fully administered in the new digital format, twelve (12) AP exams will be administered in a hybrid paper and digital format. We strongly encourage students to pay close attention to these important updates. 

Internet and Possible Disconnections

College Board understands that sometimes students or schools may experience technical difficulties. This is why College Board has taken solid steps to ensure students can submit their encrypted answers regardless of possible internet disconnections. Students only need to be connected to the internet during the start and end of their digital AP exams. At the start of an exam, College Board’s online system will begin the timer. 

However, students should not worry about internet disruptions during their digital AP exams. College Board has incorporated safeguards to automatically save student answers in case the internet disconnects. At the end of the exam, students will need to be connected to the internet to submit their answers. Even if a school or test site loses complete internet connection after the digital exam, students will still be able to submit their answers within four (4) days. 

New Free-Response Question (FRQ) Strategies

Currently, College Board will keep the multiple-choice question (MCQ) and free-response question (FRQ) types. This means the number, difficulty levels and types of questions will remain the same for all May 2025 digital AP exams. However, this does not necessarily mean that students should train for APs in the same manner as before. On the contrary, students should anticipate time management and writing obstacles for the FRQs. 

Depending on a given AP exam, students will need to type out their FRQs in paragraph or essay format. This requires students to sharpen their typing skills well in advance of the AP exams. While some students may type quite quickly, others may struggle to type at an acceptable speed. Students may also analyze prompts, supplementary material, evidence and ideas in separate ways than when writing by hand.

Furthermore, students must practice typing without the use of spell-check, word prediction, and copy, cut and paste functions. The College Board software will prohibit these common functions. Accordingly, when students practice typing, they must focus on their proofreading skills. Unfortunately, writing software applications often undermine proofreading skills. For example, students may become so dependent on spell-check that they will be unable to spot simple spelling mistakes when spell-check is turned off. This is why students must practice their typing skills now and on a continual basis.

Navigating the Digital AP Exam Software

There is often a bit of confusion on whether students will be able to review previous questions for the digital AP exams. For the May 2025 digital AP exams, students may review previous questions within a given section. Furthermore, within a given section, students may highlight, annotate and mark questions they wish to review. The digital AP exam software also allows students to eliminate answer choices. These functions will be very helpful for students to track difficult questions within a given section. However, students must be very careful with double-checking answers. Once students complete a given section, they will not be permitted to go back and change answers.

Fully Administered Digital AP Exams

The fully administered digital AP exams are mostly writing intensive AP exams. Most of the free-response questions (FRQs) will require substantial paragraphs or essays that must be typed.

The following AP exams will be fully administered in the new digital format:

1. AP African American Studies (American schools only)

2. AP Art History

3. AP Comparative Government and Politics

4. AP Computer Science A

5. AP Computer Science Principles

6. AP English Language and Composition

7. AP English Literature and Composition

8. AP Environmental Science

9. AP European History

10. AP Human Geography

11. AP Latin

12. AP Psychology

13. AP Seminar

14. AP United States Government and Politics

15. AP United States History

16. AP World History: Modern 

AP Exams with Graphing and Symbolic Notation

Some exams will provide Bluebook prompts for the free-response questions (FRQs). Bluebook software conveniently displays graphing and symbolic notation questions online. Math, science and economics students will read these FRQ prompts on Bluebook and then write the answers on paper. Essentially, students will continue to write out graphing and symbolic notation questions on paper similarly to past paper exams. 

Hybrid Digital and Paper AP Exams

Currently, the College Board calculator policies will remain the same for the May 2025 AP exams. The same reference materials, including equation sheets and periodic tables, will still be included.

The following AP exams will be administered in a hybrid digital and paper format:

1. AP Biology

2. AP Calculus AB

3. AP Calculus BC

4. AP Chemistry

5. AP Macroeconomics

6. AP Microeconomics

7. AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based

8. AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based

9. AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism 

10. AP Physics C: Mechanics 

11. AP Precalculus 

12. AP Statistics

Foreign Language AP Exams

College Board will keep the foreign language exams, except for AP Latin, in the current format. Students must keep in mind that language APs often incorporate audio and verbal sections.

The following foreign language AP exams will remain in the current format: 

1. AP Chinese Language and Culture

2. AP French Language and Culture

3. AP German Language and Culture

4. AP Italian Language and Culture

5. AP Japanese Language and Culture

6. AP Spanish Language and Culture

7. AP Spanish Literature and Culture

Training Well in Advance

Students must adjust their training methods well in advance of the May 2025 digital AP exams. Although practicing multiple-choice questions (MCQs) online may be uncommon, and, thus, difficult, students must not overly stress. Answering MCQs on the digital AP exams will be quite straightforward. The real practice must focus on the free-response questions (FRQs). There are a variety of new strategies, including typing without common writing functions, that students must sharpen for the FRQs. This is why students must start building new muscle memory as soon as possible. College Board may add, delete, or adjust the tentative May 2025 digital AP exam format at its discretion. Consequently, students must plan ahead in case they need more time to train for new strategies or exam requirements.

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