How to study for AP Psychology, from unit tests to the May 14, 2027 exam

What’s on the exam

75 multiple-choice questions with 4 choices each, then the Article Analysis Question (AAQ) about one study and the Evidence-Based Question (EBQ) about three, all on Bluebook. The AAQ’s 25 minutes include 10 to read, the EBQ’s 45 include 15.

No calculator, though you may need to work out a mean, median, mode or range by hand. No guessing penalty, so never leave a question blank.

The 2027 exam is in the afternoon session, from 12 p.m. local time at most U.S. schools; late testing is Friday, May 21.

Watch out: The exam changed in 2025: 75 questions instead of 100, 5 units instead of 9, and the AAQ and EBQ. A guide, or an older sibling’s notes, without them describes the old exam.

The five units

All five carry the same weight, 15–25% of the multiple choice, so none is safe to skip.

The skill weighs more than any unit: about 65% of the multiple choice asks you to apply a concept to a scenario, about 25% tests research methods and design, and about 10% data interpretation.

The AAQ and EBQ, part by part

The AAQ gives you a summary of one real study and asks six things, for 7 points:

1. The research method the study used.
2. The operational definition of a variable.
3. What a statistic in the results means, including the direction of the relationship.
4. An ethical guideline the summary describes, and how the researchers applied it. Since October 2025, naming one the summary doesn’t describe counts as contradicting yourself.
5. Whether the findings generalize, and why.
6. Whether a finding supports or refutes a claim, worth 2 points.

The EBQ gives you three study summaries on one topic. You propose a claim, then support it twice: evidence from one source with a psychology concept that explains it, then evidence from a different source with a different concept. Also 7 points.

From the 2025 exam readers’ report:

• Do exactly what the task verb asks: identify, state, describe or explain.
• Use the summary, not your memory of other studies; several answers sit in it.
• In the EBQ, read all three sources first and take evidence from the results. The reasoning parts lost the most points: a definition alone doesn’t earn one, so tie the concept to the evidence.

What to memorize and what to practice

Memorize with flashcards:

• Key terms, each with a fresh example: a card that only holds a definition won’t help you apply it.
• The pairs College Board says students confuse: classical versus operant conditioning, conformity versus obedience, and obsessive-compulsive disorder versus obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
• Research methods, statistics and ethics terms: operational definition, random assignment versus random sampling, confounding variables, effect size, statistical significance, informed consent and assent, deception, debriefing.
• The closed lists: the exam only asks about eight neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, glutamate, GABA, endorphins, substance P, acetylcholine), five hormones (adrenaline, leptin, ghrelin, melatonin, oxytocin) and five sleep disorders (insomnia, narcolepsy, REM sleep behavior disorder, sleep apnea, sleepwalking).

Practice, because flashcards can’t do it for you:

• Applying terms to new scenarios, at about 72 seconds a question.
• Spotting a study’s design and its flaws: confounds, sampling bias, correlation treated as causation.
• Writing AAQ answers from the summary alone, and EBQ arguments from two sources and two concepts.

The study method is on the test too: the course covers the spacing effect, the testing effect and the forgetting curve, and the 2026 EBQ asked what strengthens retrieval. Testing beats rereading: students who tested themselves on passages remembered 56% a week later, against 42% for those who restudied (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006).

Test yourself on Unit 2, where all three live: 8 of the deck’s 45 cards are below, and the whole deck goes into prettysmart with one code.

What you can skip

The course description rules these out, but plenty of older prep material still teaches them:

How to study for unit tests, midterms and finals

1. Use the unit’s topics in the course description as your checklist, minus the skip list.
2. Make cards as you go, each with an example in a new setting.
3. Review in three or four short sessions across the week before the test.
4. For a midterm or final, mix units in each session instead of studying one at a time.

A plan from now to May 14, 2027

The daily review is what slips first, usually to your phone. prettysmart locks the apps you pick, and a few flashcards open them again. We compared it with the other options in the best app blockers for studying and the best study apps for high school students.

Tip: Taking more than one AP exam? AP Human Geography and AP Biology are on May 3, AP World History on May 6 and AP U.S. History on May 7: see how to study for AP Human Geography, how to study for AP Biology, how to study for AP World History and how to study for APUSH.

If you have three days, or one

Three days out:

1. Day 1: Units 1 and 2 plus research-methods cards, then one AAQ.
2. Day 2: Units 3 and 4, then one EBQ.
3. Day 3: Unit 5 and 25 timed mixed multiple-choice questions, then the cards you missed on days 1 and 2. Then sleep.

One day out:

1. Research methods and statistics first: they feed about 35% of the multiple choice and most of the AAQ.
2. The confusable pairs: classical versus operant, conformity versus obedience, OCD versus OCPD.
3. The AAQ checklist (method, operational definition, statistic with direction, ethics only from the summary, generalizability, support or refute) and the EBQ shape (a claim, two sources, two concepts).
4. Two or three short self-tests on your cards, hours apart, instead of rereading.