AP Biology


Advanced Placement Biology (AP Biology or AP Bio) is an Advanced Placement biology course and exam offered by the College Board in the United States. For the 2012–2013 school year, the College Board unveiled a new curriculum with a greater focus on "scientific practices".[1]

"AP Bio" redirects here. For the television series, see A.P. Bio.
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Advanced Placement
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This course is designed for students who wish to pursue an interest in the life sciences. The College Board recommends successful completion of high school biology and high school chemistry[2] before commencing AP Biology, although the actual prerequisites vary from school to school and from state to state.

Topic outline

Topics covered by this course include:

In addition to the standard biology topics above, students are required to be familiar with a set of 12 specific biology labs, as well as general lab procedure.

Exam

Students are allowed to use a four-function, scientific, or graphing calculator.[3]

Exam Structure
General Composition Multiple Choice (50% of Score) Free Response (50% of Score)
  • Molecules and cells, 25%
  • Heredity and evolution, 25%
  • Organisms and populations, 50%
  • 69 questions in 90 minutes
  • 63 multiple choice
  • 6 short answer questions
  • 8 questions in 90 minutes
  • 2 essay prompts
  • 6 shorter essays

Score distribution
Score 2013[4] 2014[5] 2015[6] 2016[7] 2017[8] 2018[9] 2019[10] 2020[11]
5 5.5% 6.6% 6.4% 6.6% 6.4% 7.1% 7.2% 9.4%
4 21.6% 22.4% 22.1% 21% 21% 21.5% 22.2% 22.5%
3 36.2% 35.2% 35.9% 33.6% 36.7% 32.9% 35.3% 36.6%
2 29.3% 27.1% 27.5% 28.8% 27.5% 28.5% 26.6% 24.2%
1 7.4% 8.7% 8.2% 10.1% 8.4% 10% 8.8% 7.3%
% of scores 3 or higher 63.3% 64.2% 64.4% 61.3% 64.1% 61.5% 64.7% 68.5%
Mean 2.88 2.91 2.91 2.85 2.90 2.87 2.93 3.03
Standard deviation 1.01 1.05 1.04 1.07 1.03 1.08 1.06 1.07
Number of students 203,189 213,294 223,479 238,080 254,270 259,663 260,816

Commonly used textbooks
  • Mader, Biology, AP Edition by Sylvia Mader (2012, Hardcover ISBN 0076620042)
  • Life: The Science Of Biology (Sadava, Heller, Orians, Purves, and Hillis, ISBN 978-0-7167-7671-0)
  • Campbell Biology AP Ninth Edition (Reece, Urry, Cain, Wasserman, Minorsky, and Andrew Jackson ISBN 978-0131375048)
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See also

References
  1. AP Biology Curriculum Framework
  2. "AP Biology". Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  3. "AP Biology". Archived from the original on 1 April 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  4. Total Registration. "2013 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  5. Total Registration. "2014 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  6. Total Registration. "2015 AP Exam Score Distributions". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  7. Total Registration. "2016 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2016-07-01.
  8. Total Registration. "2017 AP Exam Score Distributions". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  9. https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2018/Student-Score-Distributions-2018.pdf
  10. "STUDENT SCORE DISTRIBUTIONS" (PDF). Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  11. Total Registration. "AP Biology - Compare Score Distributions Across Years". www.totalregistration.net. Retrieved 2020-07-07.
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