Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics (also known as AP Stats) is a college-level

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

course offered in the United States through 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 ...

Advanced Placement 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 ...

program. This course is equivalent to a one semester, non-

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

-based introductory college statistics course and is normally offered to sophomores, juniors and seniors in high school. One of the College Board's more recent additions,Mulekar (2004), p. 4 the AP Statistics exam was first administered in May 1996 to supplement the AP program's math offerings, which had previously consisted of only AP Calculus AB and BC. In the United States, enrollment in AP Statistics classes has increased at a higher rate than in any other AP class. Students may receive college credit or upper-level college course placement upon passing the three-hour exam ordinarily administered in May. The exam consists of a multiple-choice section and a free-response section that are both 90 minutes long. Each section is weighted equally in determining the students' composite scores.

History

The Advanced Placement program has offered students the opportunity to pursue college-level courses while in high school. Along with the

Educational Testing Service Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, but has a Princeton address. ETS develops var ...

, the College Board administered the first AP Statistics exam in May 1997. The course was first taught to students in the 1996-1997

academic year An academic year or school year is a period of time which schools, colleges and universities use to measure a quantity of study. School holiday School holidays (also referred to as vacations, breaks, and recess) are the periods during which sch ...

. Prior to that, the only mathematics courses offered in the AP program included AP Calculus AB and BC. Students who didn't have a strong background in college-level math, however, found the AP Calculus program inaccessible and sometimes declined to take a math course in their senior year. Since the number of students required to take statistics in college is almost as large as the number of students required to take calculus, the College Board decided to add an introductory statistics course to the AP program. Since the prerequisites for such a program doesn't require mathematical concepts beyond those typically taught in a second-year

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary a ...

course, the AP program's math offerings became accessible to a much wider audience of high school students. The AP Statistics program addressed a practical need as well since the number of students enrolling in

majors Jonathan Michael Majors (born September 7, 1989)Majors in is an American actor. He rose to prominence after starring in the independent feature film ''The Last Black Man in San Francisco'' (2019). In 2020, he garnered wider notice for portraying ...

that use statistics has grown. A total of 7,667 students took the exam during the first administration, the highest number of students to take an AP exam in its first year.Hinders (2007), p.3 Since then, the number of students taking the exam rapidly grew to 98,033 in 2007, making it one of the 10 most popular AP exams.

Course

If the course is provided by their school, students normally take AP Statistics in their junior or senior year and may decide to take it concurrently with a

pre-calculus In mathematics education, precalculus is a course, or a set of courses, that includes algebra and trigonometry at a level which is designed to prepare students for the study of calculus. Schools often distinguish between algebra and trigonometr ...

course. This offering is intended to imitate a one-semester, non-calculus based college statistics course, but high schools can decide to offer the course over one semester, two

trimesters Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but can ...

, or a full

. The six-member AP Statistics Test Development Committee is responsible for developing the curriculum. Appointed by the College Board, the committee consists of three college statistics teachers and three high school statistics teachers who are typically asked to serve for terms of three years.Mulekar (2004), p. 3Hinders (2007), p. 4

Curriculum

Emphasis is placed not on actual arithmetic computation, but rather on conceptual understanding and interpretation.Mulekar (2004), p. 5 The course curriculum is organized around four basic themes; the first involves exploring data and covers 20–30% of the exam. Students are expected to use graphical and numerical techniques to analyze distributions of data, including

univariate In mathematics, a univariate object is an expression, equation, function or polynomial involving only one variable. Objects involving more than one variable are multivariate. In some cases the distinction between the univariate and multivariate cas ...

, bivariate, and categorical data.Koehler (2008), pp. 7–9 The second theme involves planning and conducting a study and covers 10–15% of the exam. Students must be aware of the various methods of

data collection Data collection or data gathering is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established system, which then enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes. Data collection is a research com ...

through sampling or

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

ation and the sorts of conclusions that can be drawn from the results. The third theme involves

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

and its role in anticipating patterns in distributions of data. This theme covers 20–30% of the exam. The fourth theme, which covers 30–40% of the exam, involves

statistical inference Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution, distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical ...

using

point estimation In statistics, point estimation involves the use of sample data to calculate a single value (known as a point estimate since it identifies a point in some parameter space) which is to serve as a "best guess" or "best estimate" of an unknown populat ...

confidence intervals In frequentist statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is a range of estimates for an unknown parameter. A confidence interval is computed at a designated ''confidence level''; the 95% confidence level is most common, but other levels, such as 9 ...

, and

significance test A statistical hypothesis test is a method of statistical inference used to decide whether the data at hand sufficiently support a particular hypothesis. Hypothesis testing allows us to make probabilistic statements about population parameters. ...

Exam

Along with the course curriculum, the exam is developed by the AP Statistics Test Development Committee as well. With the help of other college professors, the committee creates a large pool of possible questions that is pre-tested with college students taking statistics courses. The test is then refined to an appropriate level of difficulty and clarity. Afterwards, the Educational Testing Service is responsible for printing and administering the exam.

Structure

The exam is offered every year in May.Mulekar (2004), p. 8 Students are not expected to memorize any formulas; rather, a list of common statistical formulas related to

descriptive statistics A descriptive statistic (in the count noun sense) is a summary statistic that quantitatively describes or summarizes features from a collection of information, while descriptive statistics (in the mass noun sense) is the process of using and an ...

, and

inferential statistics Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers propertie ...

is provided. Moreover, tables for the

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Student's t In probability and statistics, Student's ''t''-distribution (or simply the ''t''-distribution) is any member of a family of continuous probability distributions that arise when estimating the mean of a normally distributed population in situa ...

and

chi-squared distribution In probability theory and statistics, the chi-squared distribution (also chi-square or \chi^2-distribution) with k degrees of freedom is the distribution of a sum of the squares of k independent standard normal random variables. The chi-squa ...

s are given as well. Students are also expected to use graphing calculators with statistical capabilities. The exam is three hours long with ninety minutes allotted to complete each of its two sections: multiple-choice and free-response. The multiple-choice portion of the exam consists of forty questions with five possible answers each.Simmons (2009), p. 5 The free-response section contains six open-ended questions that are often long and divided into multiple parts. The first five of these questions may require twelve minutes each to answer and normally relate to one topic or category. The sixth question consists of a broad-ranging investigative task and may require approximately twenty-five minutes to answer.Simmons (2009), p. 6

Grading

The multiple-choice section is scored immediately after the exam by computer. One point is awarded for each correct answer, no points are credited or deducted for unanswered questions, and points are no longer deducted for having an incorrect answer.Berger (1997), p. 5 Students' answers to the free-response section are reviewed in early June by readers that include high school and college statistics teachers gathered in a designated location.Simmons (2009), p. 7 The readers use a pre-made rubric to assess the answers and normally grade only one question in a given exam. Each question is graded on a scale from 0 to 4, with a 4 representing the most complete response. Communication and clarity in the answers receive a lot of emphasis in the grading. Both sections are weighted equally when the composite score is calculated. The composite score is reported on a scale from 1 to 5, with a score of 5 being the highest possible.

Grade distributions

Notes

References

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External links

Advanced Placement website
{{Glossaries of science and engineering Statistics education

Advanced Placement