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

College Board The College Board is an American nonprofit 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 association of colleges, it runs a ...

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 which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course ...

to give

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) 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 ...

high school students the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and earn

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

-level credit. AP Chemistry has the lowest test participation rate, 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 General chemistry (sometimes referred to as "gen chem") is offered by colleges and universities as an introductory level chemistry course usually taken by students during their first year. The course is usually run with a concurrent lab section tha ...

topics (excluding

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

), including: * Reactions **

Chemical equilibrium In a chemical reaction, chemical equilibrium is the state in which both the reactants and products are present in concentrations which have no further tendency to change with time, so that there is no observable change in the properties of the sy ...

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 to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in wh ...

Stoichiometry Stoichiometry refers to the relationship between the quantities of reactants and products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is founded on the law of conservation of mass where the total mass of the reactants equal ...

Thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

Electrochemistry Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outco ...

** Reaction types * States of

matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic partic ...

Gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

es,

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 a ...

es and

Kinetic theory Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to: * Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion * Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to its motion Art and ente ...

Liquid A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...

s **

Solid Solid is one of the State of matter#Four fundamental states, four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and Plasma (physics), plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount o ...

s **

Solution Solution may refer to: * Solution (chemistry), a mixture where one substance is dissolved in another * Solution (equation), in mathematics ** Numerical solution, in numerical analysis, approximate solutions within specified error bounds * Soluti ...

s * Structure of matter **

Atomic theory Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient philosophical tradition known as atomism. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter a ...

, including evidence for atomic theory **

Chemical bonding A chemical bond is a lasting attraction between atoms or ions that enables the formation of molecules and crystals. The bond may result from the electrostatic force between oppositely charged ions as in ionic bonds, or through the sharing of ...

, including intermolecular forces (IMF) **

Nuclear chemistry Nuclear chemistry is the sub-field of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes, and transformations in the nuclei of atoms, such as nuclear transmutation and nuclear properties. It is the chemistry of radioactive elements such as t ...

(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 determ ...

** Molecular models **

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 use ...

*Laboratory and chemical calculations **

Thermochemistry Thermochemistry is the study of the heat energy which is associated with chemical reactions and/or phase changes such as melting and boiling. A reaction may release or absorb energy, and a phase change may do the same. Thermochemistry focuses on ...

Gas laws The gas laws were developed at the end of the 18th century, when scientists began to realize that relationships between pressure, volume and temperature of a sample of gas could be obtained which would hold to approximation for all gases. Boyl ...

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 A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obser ...

scenarios. * Section I, the multiple-choice portion, did ''not'' 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-sized ...

, nor did it provide any additional reference material, other than a periodic table. Each question contained five answer choices. 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, while Part B, lasting 40 minutes, did not.http://apchemresources2014.weebly.com/uploads/9/7/6/4/9764824/format_of_the_2013-14_ap_chemistry_exam.pdf The first problem in Part A concerned equilibrium related to solubility,

acids In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

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, 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, 10–15% * 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