All About the AP Psych Exam!

Multiple Choice

Questions that require defining, describing, and explaining content from various course topics, as well as applying skills related to concepts, theories, and scientific data and methods.

Free Response Questions (FRQs)

Two essay questions that require explaining behavior, applying theories using concepts from different theoretical frameworks or subdomains in psychology, and analyzing psychological research studies, including interpreting quantitative data.

Unit 1 - Scientific Foundations of Psychology

Topics include major historical figures in psychology, theoretical approaches to describing behavior, branches of psychology, research methods, application of research design and statistical analysis, and ethical guidelines.

Unit 2 - Biological Bases of Behavior

Topics include the interaction of inherited traits, environment, and evolution in shaping behavior, structures and functions of biological systems (endocrine and nervous systems), brain function, neural firing, research techniques for studying the brain, states of consciousness, addiction, and drug dependence.

Unit 3 - Sensation and Perception

Topics include basic principles of human experience and stimulus processing, role of experience and culture in perception, mechanisms of the 5 senses and sensory disorders.

Unit 4 - Learning

Topics include influential researchers and theories of learning, results of famous learning experiments, types of learning, types of conditioning and their effects, and social and cognitive factors in learning.

Unit 5 - Cognitive Psychology

Topics include cognitive and physiological processes in memory, forgetting and memory errors, biological basis of short- and long-term memory, creative thinking and problem-solving strategies, biases and errors in thinking, defining and measuring intelligence, and processes of learning and using language.

Unit 6 - Developmental Psychology

Topics include physical and social development in childhood, theories of cognitive development in childhood, adolescent development and challenges, adulthood and aging, theories of moral development, and gender and sexual orientation.

Unit 7 - Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

Topics include theories of motivation, major theories of emotion, effects of stress, conceptions of personality (behaviorist, social cognitive, humanistic, and trait theories), and research and assessments to measure personality.

Unit 8 - Clinical Psychology

Topics include standards for diagnosing and explaining psychological disorders, various disorders (neurodevelopmental, schizophrenic spectrum, bipolar, depressive, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, dissociative, somatic, trauma- and stress-related, substance abuse, eating, personality), historical developments in psychological treatment, and modern treatment options and methods.

Unit 9 - Social Psychology

Topics include the impact of social and cultural categories on self-concept and behavior, factors influencing attitude formation and change, group dynamics (conformity, compliance, obedience to authority), behavior influenced by the presence of others, bias, prejudice, discrimination, altruism, and aggression.

Units to Study (by Highest Number of Questions Possibly Being on the Exam)

Cognitive Psychology, Clinical Psychology & Developmental Psychology, Motivation, Emotion, and Personality, Scientific Foundations of Psychology, Social Psychology & Biological Bases of Behavior, Learning, Sensation and Perception.