Entering an AP Physics 1 practice exam
Enter the number of multiple-choice questions you got right out of 42, then the points each free-response answer earned on College Board’s scoring guidelines. Use the 2025 or 2026 guidelines: the four question types (Mathematical Routines, Translation Between Representations, Experimental Design and Analysis, Qualitative/Quantitative Translation) arrived with the course revision, and older released questions are scored differently.
The free-response points count equally, 1.25 percentage points each, because College Board gives no separate weight per question. A multiple-choice answer is worth about 1.19, so the two sections pay almost the same per point, and Translation Between Representations, at 12 points, is the biggest single question.
Why the cutoffs are Fiveable’s
Physics 1 has no College Board conversion chart that we could find for its current format, so this page uses the estimated lines Fiveable publishes for 2027. Its 100-point composite splits multiple choice and free response 50/50 like the real exam, which lets the calculator read your weighted score straight against it. The lines are Fiveable’s own judgement, and every result here says so.
Physics 1 also has one of the larger shares of 1s among the exams on this calculator, 17% in May 2026, so an estimate near the 1/2 or 2/3 line deserves extra caution. If you take Mechanics too, the Physics C: Mechanics calculator uses an official College Board chart.
AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based exam format, May 2027
| Part | Scored out of | Share of score |
|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple choice · 1 h 25 min · 50% | ||
| Multiple-choice questions correct | 42 | 50% |
| Section II: Free response · 1 h 35 min · 50% | ||
| Question 1 · Mathematical routines, 0–10 | 10 | 12.5% |
| Question 2 · Translation between representations, 0–12 | 12 | 15% |
| Question 3 · Experimental design and analysis, 0–10 | 10 | 12.5% |
| Question 4 · Qualitative/quantitative translation, 0–8 | 8 | 10% |
Estimated cutoffs
Estimated cutoffs from Fiveable's published chart (2027), not College Board — we found no official College Board chart for this exam. Source: Fiveable's AP Physics 1 score calculator (2027), which uses the May 2027 format, on a 100-point composite with College Board's weights. The calculator reads your weighted score against that chart's 0–100 scale.
| AP score | Fiveable composite | Weighted score from |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 70–100 | 69.5% |
| 4 | 54–69 | 53.5% |
| 3 | 40–53 | 39.5% |
| 2 | 25–39 | 24.5% |
| 1 | 0–24 | 0% |
AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based score distributions
| Year | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | 19% | 24% | 25% | 15% | 17% |
| May 2025 | 19.8% | 24.7% | 22.9% | 13.4% | 19.2% |
Share of students earning each score, from College Board's AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based score distributions. 174,401 students took the exam in May 2025. The May 2026 figures are College Board's rounded whole percentages.