AP English Language Score Calculation

Hello everyone, I will be taking the AP English Language exam at the end of the year and I'm trying to estimate my score. Are there any useful strategies or resources that can help me calculate an approximate score based on practice tests?

Hello! While it can be helpful to get a ballpark estimate of how you may have performed, it's also important to recognize that this would only be a rough estimate and not an exact prediction. CollegeBoard, the organization that administers AP exams, doesn't publicly release the precise scoring rubrics that they use for each exam, so the score calculations that you make are estimates, at best.

Typically, the AP English Language exam is scored out of a total of 150 points: 67 points for multiple-choice questions (45% of the score), and 83 points for free-response questions (55% of the score). Each of the three types of free-response questions contributes towards a portion of the free-response score.

Knowing this, you could roughly estimate your multiple-choice score by giving yourself 1 point for each question you feel confident you've answered correctly. For the free responses, since you know those form 55% of your total score, you could rate each of your three answers on a scale of 1 to 9 and then add those up.

Please note that these estimates are very rough and the actual scoring used by CollegeBoard involves several steps of standardization and statistical analysis to ensure fairness on a national level. It's easy to overestimate your score when you evaluate your own performance, due to factors like familiarity with the material and subjective judgment. Regardless, it's always smart to do practice tests throughout the year to get comfortable with the material and structure of the test, even if you can't perfectly predict your score!