Hey everyone, I'm trying to understand how the AP Lit exam score is calculated. Is there a specific calculator or formula that I can use? How much weight is given to each section of the exam? Any clarity on this would be awesome, thanks in advance!
Hello! The AP Literature exam score is calculated using a two-part process.
The first part consists of the multiple choice section, which makes up about 45% of your total score. Each question you answer correctly counts as one point.
The second part is made up of three free-response questions: a poem analysis, a prose analysis, and an open essay question. This portion of the exam is worth 55% of your total score. Each essay is scored using a 0-6 point system, with six being the highest score. These essay scores are then multiplied by 3.0556 (so that they make up 55% of the overall score) to get your final free-response score.
So, your total exam score is derived by adding your weighted multiple-choice score to your weighted free-response score. The total score is then converted to the standard AP scoring scale of 1 - 5, with 5 being the highest possible score. Keep in mind that because this process is a bit more complex, there's no straight path from raw points to final score; however, this basic breakdown should give you a decent understanding of how scoring works.
Please note that the cut-off scores for each AP scale score (1-5) can vary slightly from year to year based on test difficulty, so it's impossible to determine an exact raw score that will guarantee you a certain AP score.
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