AP Psychology is a class offered to high school students who want to undertake the same amount of work and learn the same amount of information as students who take introductory psychology courses at universities. These high school students can potentially earn college credit by scoring well on the AP Psychology exam at the end of the year. However, AP Psychology can cause a lot of apprehension in the students who undertake it; it is a challenging course that covers a wide range of content, so keeping up with its speedy pace, while learning the required material well and at the appropriate depth, can be difficult. If you are such an apprehensive student, reading the following guide about the topics stressed in AP Psychology, the structure and formatting of the AP Psychology exam, and some great free online resources to help you study can help you tackle AP Psychology with confidence.

AP Psychology courses aim to introduce students to the scientific study of mental processes and behavior, as well as the methods that psychologists use to gather reliable, valid data, and the ethics involved in designing experiments. AP Psychology stresses the following topics in the following ratios:

History and Approaches (2–4%)

Research Methods (8–10%)

Biological Bases of Behavior (8–10%)

Sensation and Perception (6–8%)

States of Consciousness (2–4%)

Learning (7–9%)

Cognition (8–10%)

Motivation and Emotion (6–8%)

Developmental Psychology (7–9%)

Personality (5–7%)

Testing and Individual Differences (5–7%)

Abnormal Behavior (7–9%)

Treatment of Abnormal Behavior (5–7%)

Social Psychology (8–10%)

AP Psychology courses are typically concluded with each student taking the AP Psychology exam, which determines whether or not they will receive credit for taking the AP Psychology class. The AP Psychology exam is divided into two parts. The first part consists of one hundred multiple-choice questions, lasts for seventy minutes, and represents two-thirds of a student’s exam grade; the second part consists of two essay-based free response questions, lasts for fifty minutes, and represents one-third of a student’s exam grade.

If AP Psychology has you stressed out from feeling like you don’t understand certain topics very well, but haven’t been able to identify these gaps in your knowledge, you can solve this issue by making use of Varsity Tutors’ free AP Psychology Practice Tests. Each AP Psychology Practice Test is a short quiz that contains between ten and twelve multiple-choice AP Psychology questions like the kind that might appear on the AP Psychology exam. You can take quizzes organized by topic, or quizzes that draw from a variety of topics. After taking an AP Psychology Practice Test, you are presented with detailed data about how you did in relation to others who took the same test, and how long you took to answer each question. You can also view detailed explanations for each question that you answered that walk you through the logic that was used to solve it, so if you missed a question, you can identify the particular mistake you made.

However, you might want to start the review process by taking a free Full-Length AP Psychology Practice Test. These free online tests are comprehensive assessments that cover the entire range of concepts you’ll need to know for the actual test. These AP Psychology mimicking exams also give you an opportunity to evaluate your testing pace and to become comfortable with the test’s length. As on the concept-specific practice tests, the results pages for the complete practice tests include detailed explanations of the correct answers and additional review that’s relevant to each question. These free online practice tests for AP Psychology can even help you fine-tune your review plan by showing you which concepts you already know, and those you’ll want to spend a little more time reviewing. As you move forward toward test day, you can continue to take advantage of the other Learning Tools to help you review. You can also gauge your progress by returning to take another Full-Length AP Psychology Practice Test.

By using Varsity Tutors’ free AP Psychology Practice Tests, along with the rest of Varsity Tutors’ free AP Psychology resources, you can identify any gaps in your knowledge, fill them, and feel completely prepared for the AP Psychology exam on test day!