Entering an APES practice exam
AP Environmental Science leans on multiple choice more than the other science exams here. Section I is 80 questions in 90 minutes and counts for 60% of the score; Section II is three free-response questions in 70 minutes for the other 40%. Each free-response question is scored out of 10 points on its scoring guidelines. Enter the number of multiple-choice questions you got right and the points for each question.
Free-response credit comes point by point, so a question you can only half answer still earns something. The scoring guidelines for the year you practise with show exactly what each of the 10 points needs, including on the calculation question.
Nearly thirty years between the chart and the exam
The APES cutoffs rest on the oldest chart on this calculator: the 1998 released exam, reissued by College Board in 2010 after it stopped deducting points for wrong answers. The exam has been reshaped since: its multiple-choice section was 20 questions longer, and there was a fourth free-response question. The 60/40 balance is the one thing that lines up.
That chart also set demanding lines: a 3 needed 86 of 150, well over half the points, the highest bar for a 3 among the subjects here. If your practice estimate sits near the 2/3 boundary, don’t read much into which side it falls; the real line for May may be lower or higher.
AP Environmental Science exam format, May 2027
| Part | Scored out of | Share of score |
|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple choice · 1 h 30 min · 60% | ||
| Multiple-choice questions correct | 80 | 60% |
| Section II: Free response · 1 h 10 min · 40% | ||
| Question 1 · Design an investigation, 0–10 | 10 | 13.3% |
| Question 2 · Analyze and interpret quantitative data, 0–10 | 10 | 13.3% |
| Question 3 · Analyze an environmental problem with calculations, 0–10 | 10 | 13.3% |
Estimated cutoffs
From the AP Environmental Science 1998 Released Exam, replacement scoring worksheet, College Board's newest published conversion chart for this subject (1998 exam: 100 multiple-choice questions (60%) and 4 free-response questions of 10 points (40%)). The calculator puts your weighted score on that chart's 0–150 scale.
| AP score | 1998 composite | Weighted score from |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 115–150 | 76.3% |
| 4 | 99–114 | 65.7% |
| 3 | 86–98 | 57% |
| 2 | 73–85 | 48.3% |
| 1 | 0–72 | 0% |
AP Environmental Science score distributions
| Year | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | 13% | 29% | 27% | 15% | 16% |
| May 2025 | 12.6% | 27.8% | 28.8% | 15.0% | 15.8% |
Share of students earning each score, from College Board's AP Environmental Science score distributions. 245,371 students took the exam in May 2025. The May 2026 figures are College Board's rounded whole percentages.