AP Physics 1 Score Calculator

Multiple choice, 42 questions, scales to 50 composite points. Free response, 40 raw points across four questions, also scales to 50. The two halves are added and rounded to give a composite out of 100, which the curve turns into a 1 to 5. Each half counts for 50% of the exam, which is how College Board weights them.

The composite is exact, built from College Board's published section weights and point values. The 1 to 5 conversion is a projection. College Board has never released a scoring worksheet for the current exam and sets its cutoffs only after each administration. The curve here comes from AP-prep sites that agree, but a composite near a cutoff could land on either side.

On the curve used here you need 70 out of 100. Because the composite is on a 100-point scale, that is exactly 70%. In 2025 about 19.8% of test takers earned a 5. The real cutoff moves each year, so a composite in the mid-60s to the mid-70s is too close to call.

On this curve, yes, and it is exactly on the line. A composite of 70 out of 100 is a 5 and 69 is a 4. That only works because the composite is scaled from both sections evenly. A raw percentage on a single section can be very different from your composite, so calculate the composite before you count on it.

A composite of 54 out of 100, or 54%, earns a 4 on the curve used here. A 4 was the most common score in 2025, earned by 24.7% of test takers. The band runs from 54 to 69, so there is room to be well inside it or right at either edge.

A composite of 40 out of 100, which is 40%, reaches a 3 on this curve. A 3 is the lowest score College Board calls qualified. About 22.9% of 2025 test takers scored a 3, and whether it earns college credit depends on the school, since many want a 4 for physics.

There are 42 questions and you have 85 minutes for them. They are 50% of the exam score. The questions are either single items or sets that give you a stimulus or a data set and follow with several related questions. Only correct answers count, so guessing never costs you points.

There are four, in 95 minutes: mathematical routines (10 points), translation between representations (12), experimental design and analysis (10), and qualitative/quantitative translation (8). That is 40 raw points, and together they are the other 50% of the exam score. All four are required.

College Board permits calculators on AP Physics 1 and points students to its AP Exams Calculator Policy for the list of approved models, so check that list before exam day rather than assuming your calculator qualifies. It also provides an equations sheet, printed for the test room and available in the Bluebook app.

Not the classroom kind. College Board does not rank students against each other. It sets the composite needed for each AP score after the exam, adjusting for how hard that year's version was, so a 4 or a 5 means the same thing every year. That is also why no official conversion table exists in advance.

College Board's 2025 distribution shows a mean of 3.12 across 174,401 test takers, and 67.4% scored a 3 or higher. That is below the 3.36 mean for AP Chemistry the same year, in part because 19.2% of physics test takers scored a 1.

In 2025, 19.8% of test takers scored a 5. The rest split as 24.7% with a 4, 22.9% with a 3, 13.4% with a 2 and 19.2% with a 1, according to College Board's published distribution. That is a wide spread, with large groups at both the top and the bottom of the scale.

No. AP Physics 2 and the AP Physics C exams have their own structures, question counts and scoring, and this page is built only for AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based, with 42 multiple-choice questions and four free-response questions. Results for the other physics exams would not be meaningful here.