AP score distributions are the only official statistic College Board publishes about how a full cohort performed: the exact percentage of students who earned each score from 5 down to 1. This page puts the 2026 AP score distributions for all 40 exams in one table, with the full 1–5 breakdown, links every exam we model to its calculator, tracks AP Calculus AB and BC year by year since 2021, and then explains the part most rankings skip — why comparing raw 5 rates across exams tells you far less than it appears to.
What AP Score Distributions Actually Show
An AP score distribution is a headcount expressed as percentages: the share of test-takers who earned each score from 5 down to 1, published once every exam in that administration has been scored and equated. It is not a curve, not a raw-score conversion, and not a difficulty rating.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. The composite cutoffs on our AP exam score calculators — the share of raw points you need for a 5 — are estimates, reconstructed from released exams and reported results. AP score distributions are the opposite: College Board publishes them itself, they are exact, and nobody has to reverse-engineer them. When the two seem to disagree about which exam is “easier,” the distribution is the fact and the cutoff is the inference.
Below is the official 2026 AP score data for all 40 exams, sorted by the percentage earning a 5. Everything after the table is about what those numbers can and cannot support.
Every 2026 percentage here comes from College Board’s 2026 AP score distributions page, which carries an aggregate table plus a dedicated page for each exam, and which College Board says it updates as scores are announced by Trevor Packer, its head of AP, on X and Bluesky. The 2025 test-taker counts come from College Board’s official May 2025 student score distributions PDF. To verify a single number, go to that exam’s own page — for example the AP Latin distribution page — rather than to an aggregator.
Are the 2026 AP Score Distributions Out?
Yes. College Board has published 2026 score distributions for all 40 AP exams. Scores reach students in July, and the distributions roll out exam by exam around the same time: Trevor Packer posts the figures as each exam is released, and College Board’s per-exam pages carry the same numbers.
The 2026 figures are still in their first, rounded form. As of October 2026, every per-exam page shows the 2026 row as whole percentages in italics, with the test-taker and mean-score cells blank, while the 2025 row beneath it carries a decimal place, a test-taker count and a mean score. The detailed tables with counts and one-decimal precision have historically followed later in the year.
That is why the last column of the table shows 2025 test-taker counts, clearly labeled. They are last year’s final official counts, not 2026 enrollment — useful for judging how big each cohort is, which matters when you read a small exam’s percentages.
2026 AP Score Distributions for All 40 Exams
| Exam | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 or higher | Test-takers (2025) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AP Chinese Language and Culture | 48% | 19% | 18% | 6% | 9% | 85% | 18,312 |
| AP Japanese Language and Culture | 47% | 10% | 15% | 7% | 21% | 72% | 3,245 |
| AP Calculus BC | 46% | 22% | 14% | 14% | 4% | 82% | 160,436 |
| AP Precalculus | 29% | 29% | 24% | 11% | 7% | 82% | 253,596 |
| AP Computer Science A | 25% | 26% | 15% | 11% | 23% | 66% | 93,217 |
| AP Physics C: E&M | 24% | 24% | 27% | 17% | 8% | 75% | 29,708 |
| AP German Language and Culture | 24% | 17% | 27% | 22% | 10% | 68% | 4,213 |
| AP U.S. Government | 23% | 28% | 25% | 16% | 8% | 76% | 387,973 |
| AP Spanish Language and Culture | 21% | 31% | 31% | 14% | 3% | 83% | 182,670 |
| AP African American Studies | 20% | 30% | 27% | 17% | 6% | 77% | 21,435 |
| AP Latin | 20% | 29% | 24% | 17% | 10% | 73% | 4,336 |
| AP Physics C: Mechanics | 20% | 25% | 27% | 17% | 11% | 72% | 65,980 |
| AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based | 20% | 29% | 23% | 21% | 7% | 72% | 24,211 |
| AP Spanish Literature and Culture | 20% | 23% | 28% | 20% | 9% | 71% | 27,266 |
| AP Calculus AB | 20% | 28% | 17% | 24% | 11% | 65% | 285,891 |
| AP Italian Language and Culture | 19% | 22% | 28% | 20% | 11% | 69% | 2,241 |
| AP Physics 1 | 19% | 24% | 25% | 15% | 17% | 68% | 174,401 |
| AP Microeconomics | 19% | 26% | 23% | 20% | 12% | 68% | 117,548 |
| AP Macroeconomics | 19% | 22% | 25% | 20% | 14% | 66% | 176,356 |
| AP Human Geography | 19% | 26% | 21% | 24% | 10% | 66% | 282,781 |
| AP Music Theory | 18% | 17% | 24% | 26% | 15% | 59% | 17,799 |
| AP Research | 17% | 31% | 42% | 8% | 2% | 90% | 43,214 |
| AP Statistics | 17% | 23% | 22% | 17% | 21% | 62% | 266,791 |
| AP Drawing | 16% | 31% | 36% | 14% | 3% | 83% | 23,107 |
| AP European History | 16% | 33% | 25% | 18% | 8% | 74% | 86,729 |
| AP English Literature | 16% | 26% | 31% | 16% | 11% | 73% | 416,531 |
| AP English Language | 15% | 28% | 32% | 15% | 10% | 75% | 616,294 |
| AP Chemistry | 15% | 31% | 30% | 18% | 6% | 75% | 168,833 |
| AP Psychology | 15% | 35% | 24% | 18% | 8% | 74% | 334,038 |
| AP French Language and Culture | 15% | 23% | 33% | 23% | 6% | 71% | 19,639 |
| AP Biology | 15% | 25% | 31% | 21% | 8% | 71% | 287,232 |
| AP Comparative Government and Politics | 15% | 22% | 33% | 18% | 12% | 70% | 27,150 |
| AP Art History | 15% | 25% | 27% | 24% | 9% | 67% | 25,584 |
| AP U.S. History | 14% | 37% | 23% | 18% | 8% | 74% | 516,738 |
| AP World History | 14% | 36% | 16% | 26% | 8% | 66% | 411,547 |
| AP Environmental Science | 13% | 29% | 27% | 15% | 16% | 69% | 245,371 |
| AP 2-D Art and Design | 12% | 30% | 43% | 12% | 3% | 85% | 48,279 |
| AP Seminar | 10% | 21% | 57% | 10% | 2% | 88% | 126,001 |
| AP Computer Science Principles | 10% | 23% | 30% | 21% | 16% | 63% | 175,174 |
| AP 3-D Art and Design | 7% | 25% | 43% | 23% | 2% | 75% | 10,304 |
How to Read an AP Score Distribution
Start with the number everyone quotes: the share earning a 5. Across the 40 exams it runs from 48% (AP Chinese Language and Culture) down to 7% (AP 3-D Art and Design). Within the 23 exams we build calculators for, the spread is 46% (AP Calculus BC) down to 10% (AP Computer Science Principles).
The instinctive reading — that Calculus BC is four and a half times easier — is wrong, and it is wrong for a reason worth understanding. A distribution is two things multiplied together: how demanding the exam is, and who sat it. From the outside those two inputs cannot be separated, and on several exams the second one dominates completely.
AP Calculus BC is the clearest case. Its cohort has already finished a year of calculus, self-selected into the harder of the two calculus courses, and is largely bound for quantitative majors. A 46% 5 rate on that population is not evidence of a gentle exam; it is evidence of a filtered, well-prepared group. The same logic covers AP Physics C: Mechanics and AP Physics C: E&M, which post 72% and 75% pass rates on cohorts a fraction the size of AP Physics 1.
AP Computer Science Principles runs the other way. It is designed as a first, accessible computing course and is offered widely to students with no programming background. A 10% 5 rate on a broad, open-enrollment cohort is a different measurement than the same figure on a filtered one. It also happens to carry the toughest composite cutoff we track — roughly 83% of available points for a 5 — so there the exam and the cohort push in the same direction.
The working rule: compare an exam against its own past years, or against exams with a similar enrollment profile. Comparing AP Calculus BC to AP Computer Science Principles tells you almost nothing about which one you will find harder.
The Highest and Lowest 5 Rates
Percentage of 5s by AP Exam: Three Traps
Heritage speakers. The two highest 5 rates on the board — AP Chinese Language and Culture at 48% and AP Japanese Language and Culture at 47% — are Total Group figures, which include students who regularly speak or hear the language outside school or have lived where it is spoken. College Board’s 2025 report shows how big that group is: of 18,312 AP Chinese test-takers, only 4,712 (about 26%) were in the standard group, and AP Spanish Language was similar, with about 72% of its 182,670 test-takers outside the standard group. The gap in outcomes is just as large: in 2025, 54.9% of all AP Chinese test-takers earned a 5 but only 23.0% of standard-group students did; for AP Japanese the figures were 43.3% and 12.4%. Reading a total-group 5 rate as proof an exam is easy is the most common misuse of AP score data there is.
Exams with no conventional composite. Five of the 40 — AP Seminar, AP Research, AP 2-D Art and Design, AP 3-D Art and Design, and AP Drawing — are scored mainly or entirely from performance tasks and portfolios. There is no multiple-choice section and no free-response raw total, and therefore no “percent of the composite needed for a 5.” AP Research posts the highest pass rate of any AP exam at 90% scoring 3 or higher and AP Seminar is close behind at 88%, but those numbers describe year-long work (plus, for Seminar, a short end-of-course exam) judged against rubrics, not a three-hour test. That is also the honest reason our curve comparison stops at 23 exams while this distribution table covers all 40.
Small cohorts. AP Italian had 2,241 test-takers in 2025, AP Japanese 3,245, AP German 4,213, AP Latin 4,336. On numbers that small a few hundred students move a percentage several points, so year-over-year swings that look dramatic frequently are not. AP Latin’s 3+ rate jumped from 58.6% in 2025 to 73% in 2026 and its 5 rate from 12.5% to 20% — the largest single-year move on the 2026 board. It is real and it is straight off College Board’s page. It is not a reason to build a schedule around AP Latin.
For the language exams, the percentages in the table above are Total Group figures. College Board also publishes a standard group distribution — students who did not indicate that they regularly speak or hear the language, or that they have lived for a month or more where it is spoken — and it looks materially different. If you are a non-heritage speaker weighing AP Chinese or AP Spanish Language, the total-group 5 rate is not the number that describes your odds; find the standard group table in College Board’s per-exam score report.
The AP Computer Science A Bimodal Distribution
Most AP score distributions are roughly hill-shaped: a modest tail of 1s, a bulge across 2 and 3, a thinner 4, a smaller 5. AP Computer Science A is not. In 2025 it produced 25.6% 5s and 22.0% 1s — the two ends of the scale were almost the same size, with the middle scores squeezed between them. The 2026 figures show the same shape: 25% 5s and 23% 1s.
This is the signature of a skills-based programming exam. The free-response questions ask you to write working Java: a method, a class, a 2-D array traversal. Code either implements the required logic or it does not, and partial credit rewards correct structure rather than a good-faith gesture. A student fluent with arrays, ArrayLists, inheritance, and recursion can attempt all four questions; a student who never got comfortable with the syntax often cannot start them. There is far less middle ground than on an essay-based exam, where a partial argument still earns partial points.
The practical implication is that the headline 5 rate is not an invitation. The same exam that produces a quarter 5s produces nearly a quarter 1s, and its overall pass rate (66%) sits below AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP U.S. History. AP Computer Science Principles, which shares a subject but not a format, has a far more conventional shape: 10% 5s and a 63% pass rate.
AP Computer Science A: Both Ends of the Scale
| Year | % earning a 5 | % earning a 1 | % earning 3+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (rounded first release) | 25% | 23% | 66% |
| 2025 (final) | 25.6% | 22.0% | 67% |
AP Calculus AB and BC Score Distributions by Year (2021–2026)
Calculus is where most year-over-year questions land, so here are both exams side by side from College Board’s own per-exam pages. The 2026 row is the rounded first release; earlier years are final figures with one decimal place.
AP Calculus AB has been remarkably steady at the top: its 5 rate has stayed between 17.6% and 22.4% in every year since 2021, and was 20% in 2026. The movement has been lower down. The share scoring 3 or higher rose from 51.0% in 2021 to 64.4% in 2024 and has held there since — 64.2% in 2025, 65% in 2026 — with most of the gain showing up as 4s (16.2% of students in 2023, 27.8% in 2024). College Board’s 2024 AP Score Changes brief lists AP Calculus AB and BC among the subjects that have not had score changes under its newer standard-setting process, and it does not explain the 2024 shift, so we do not either.
AP Calculus BC has been strong throughout and has grown fast. Its 5 rate climbed from 38.3% in 2021 to 47.7% in 2024, eased to 44.0% in 2025 and came in at 46% in 2026, while its cohort grew from 124,599 test-takers in 2021 to 160,436 in 2025 — about 29% more students in four years. BC students also receive a Calculus AB subscore; in 2025, 47.8% of them earned a 5 on that subscore and 88.0% a 3 or higher.
What College Board does not publish for any year is the composite score needed for a 5. If you are looking for the AP Calculus BC cutoff in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025, no official figure exists; the distributions below are the official year-by-year record. Our estimates, which we treat as moving targets, put a 5 at roughly 64% of the composite on AB and 57% on BC — see AP score curves compared for how those are built.
AP Calculus AB and BC, Year by Year
| Year | AB: % 5 | AB: % 3+ | AB test-takers | BC: % 5 | BC: % 3+ | BC test-takers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 20% | 65% | Not yet published | 46% | 82% | Not yet published |
| 2025 | 20.3% | 64.2% | 285,891 | 44.0% | 78.6% | 160,436 |
| 2024 | 21.4% | 64.4% | 278,657 | 47.7% | 80.9% | 148,191 |
| 2023 | 22.4% | 58.0% | 273,987 | 43.5% | 78.5% | 135,458 |
| 2022 | 20.4% | 55.6% | 268,352 | 41.2% | 76.9% | 120,238 |
| 2021 | 17.6% | 51.0% | 251,639 | 38.3% | 75.2% | 124,599 |
Distribution vs Curve: Two Numbers People Confuse
A score distribution and a scoring curve are different objects, and conflating them produces most of the bad advice online. The distribution says what fraction of students landed on each score. The curve — properly, the composite cutoff — says how many raw points you needed to get there. An exam can have a forgiving cutoff and a mediocre distribution, or the reverse.
AP Statistics is the cleanest example. Its estimated cutoff for a 5 sits near 71% of the composite, squarely mid-pack among the 23 exams we model. Its 2026 pass rate, 62%, is the second-lowest of all 40 exams, behind only AP Music Theory at 59%. Nothing about the cutoff explains that. The cohort does: AP Statistics draws a broad enrollment that includes many students taking it as a terminal math course.
Running the other way, AP Calculus BC’s cutoff for a 5 is roughly 57% of the composite — the most forgiving we track, and 26 percentage points below AP Computer Science Principles at about 83% — and its distribution is strong too. When cutoff and distribution agree, you are usually watching cohort strength show up twice.
How to Place Yourself in the Data
- Score a released practice exam honestly against the official rubric — no partial credit a reader would not actually award you.
- Convert your raw points into a composite using the matching tool on our AP exam score calculators page.
- Read the estimated 1–5 result, then treat anything within about three composite points of a cutoff as a coin flip rather than a prediction.
- Find your exam’s row in the table above to see what share of last year’s cohort landed where you did.
- Repeat with a second released exam before you trust the answer. One practice test is a data point, not a trend.
How We Normalized These Numbers
Two versions of the same statistic circulate every summer, because College Board’s pages carry both the new year and several historical years, and aggregators mix them freely. Our own calculator pages were built during the 2025 cycle, and several carried 2025 figures with a decimal place — AP Biology at 18.9% 5s, AP Chemistry at 17.9%, AP Psychology at 14.4%.
For this table every row is 2026, checked against both College Board’s aggregate page and each exam’s own page in October 2026. That check caught two rows in our July version that were really 2025 figures rounded to whole numbers: AP English Language is 15% 5s and 75% 3+ in 2026 (not 13% and 74%), and AP U.S. Government is 23% and 76% (not 24% and 72%). The two College Board sources agree everywhere except one cell: AP Chemistry’s 3-or-higher rate is 75% on the aggregate page and 76% on the exam’s own page. We use the aggregate figure.
Two standing caveats apply to everything above. The distributions are official published figures. The composite cutoffs quoted alongside them are not: College Board has never released an official raw-score-to-1–5 conversion for a live exam, and it re-equates every exam every year, so every cutoff on this site is an estimate that moves.
Where to Go Next
If you have a raw practice score and want the 1–5 it implies, pick your exam from the full set of AP exam score calculators, each with its own researched cutoffs and score distribution. The heavily used ones are AP U.S. History, AP English Language, AP Calculus AB and AP Psychology; the newest are AP Physics 2 and AP Comparative Government.
For the reasoning behind the cutoffs rather than the results, read AP score curves compared, which has an AP curve chart for 23 exams, and the easiest and hardest AP exams, which explains why “forgiving” and “easy” are not the same word.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are AP score distributions?
An AP score distribution is College Board’s official published breakdown of what percentage of students earned each score from 5 down to 1 on a given exam. It is released after all exams in an administration have been scored and equated. Unlike composite cutoffs, which are estimates, distributions are exact published figures.
Which AP exam has the highest percentage of 5s?
AP Chinese Language and Culture, at 48% in 2026, followed by AP Japanese Language and Culture at 47%. Both are Total Group figures that include heritage speakers. Among non-language exams the leader is AP Calculus BC at 46%, and the lowest 5 rate of all 40 exams is AP 3-D Art and Design at 7%.
Which AP exam has the lowest pass rate?
AP Music Theory, with 59% of students scoring 3 or higher in 2026. AP Statistics is next at 62%, then AP Computer Science Principles at 63%. At the other end, AP Research posts the highest pass rate at 90%, with AP Seminar at 88%.
When do AP score distributions come out each year?
Scores are released to students in July, and the distributions roll out exam by exam around the same time: Trevor Packer, College Board’s head of AP, posts them on X and Bluesky, and College Board’s score distribution pages are updated as they are announced. The detailed tables with test-taker counts and one-decimal precision have historically followed later.
Are the 2026 AP score distributions out, and are they final?
They are out for all 40 exams. As of October 2026 they are still in their first, rounded form: College Board shows the 2026 row as whole percentages in italics, with the test-taker count and mean score left blank. The 2025 rows on the same pages are final, with one-decimal precision and counts. That is why our table pairs 2026 percentages with 2025 test-taker counts.
What is the AP Calculus AB score distribution for 2026?
In 2026, 20% of AP Calculus AB students earned a 5, 28% a 4, 17% a 3, 24% a 2 and 11% a 1, so 65% scored 3 or higher. That is in line with 2025 (20.3% 5s, 64.2% 3 or higher) and 2024 (21.4%, 64.4%).
What is the AP Calculus BC score distribution for 2026?
In 2026, 46% of AP Calculus BC students earned a 5, 22% a 4, 14% a 3, 14% a 2 and 4% a 1, so 82% scored 3 or higher. The 5 rate was 44.0% in 2025, 47.7% in 2024 and 38.3% in 2021. College Board does not publish the composite cutoff for a 5 in any year.
What percentage of students get a 5 on AP Seminar?
About 10% in 2026, and 9.4% in 2025. AP Seminar has one of the lowest 5 rates of any AP exam but one of the highest pass rates — 88% scored 3 or higher in 2026 — because most students land on a 3 (57% in 2026). It is scored from performance tasks plus an end-of-course exam, so it has no conventional composite curve to compare.
Why does AP Computer Science A have so many 5s and so many 1s?
Because it is a skills-based programming exam. Its free-response questions require working Java code, which either implements the required logic or does not, so there is far less partial-credit middle ground than on an essay exam. The result is a bimodal AP score distribution: 25.6% earned a 5 and 22.0% earned a 1 in 2025, with 2026 showing the same shape at 25% and 23%.
Does a high percentage of 5s mean an exam is easy?
No. A distribution reflects both the exam and the cohort that sat it, and for several exams the cohort dominates. AP Calculus BC’s 46% 5 rate comes from students who already completed a year of calculus and chose the harder course. The language exams’ high 5 rates partly reflect heritage speakers. Comparing raw 5 rates across exams with different enrollment profiles is not a fair difficulty comparison.
How do AP score distributions relate to the cutoffs on your calculators?
They answer different questions. The distribution tells you where students landed; the cutoff tells you how many raw points it took to land there. The distributions are official. The cutoffs are our estimates — College Board has never published an official raw-score-to-1-5 conversion for a live exam and re-equates every year, so treat every calculator result as a projection with a margin of about one score point near a boundary.
