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Big changes are coming to AP exams, and staying informed is key! Whether you’ll be testing fully digital, hybrid, or on paper, understanding the new setups in College Board’s Bluebook app can give you an edge. This guide covers what’s new—from digital practice tips to picking the right calculator. Get ready to approach AP season with confidence by learning what to expect and how to prepare for success!
Many AP classes have midterms and semester finals structured to mimic the official AP exams. As these tests approach, it is a good time to review this year’s changes to how AP exams will be administered. Last year, most AP exams were given in their traditional paper format and there were eight exams where schools had the option of giving them digitally. This year, the majority of AP exams will be taken at least partially in College Board’s Bluebook app, the same app used for the PSAT and SAT.
Your classes won’t be using Bluebook for your midterms and finals, but there are similar tools in AP Classroom that your teacher might choose to use. If you are told that your test will be in AP exam format, but your teacher doesn’t specify whether it will be digital or not, make sure you ask! There are tools and strategies you can use if you will be typing your essays that you can’t use if you will be writing them by hand, so knowing which to prepare for is valuable! Similarly, knowing whether you should be familiarizing yourself with the Desmos calculator or focusing on the procedures for your personal calculator is important.
We don’t know what the answers will be for your specific class this fall, but we can answer some questions you might have about what will be coming in May on the official AP exams. If you have additional questions or want support in your AP class, get in touch with our Client Services team to find out how we can help!
Students with fully digital exams will, as the name suggests, take their AP exams fully in Bluebook. Any exam where the free-response section consists solely of writing essays will be fully digital this year. The AP Lang and AP Lit exams have had the number of multiple-choice options decreased from 5 to 4, but otherwise all of these tests will follow the same structure that they have previously.
In the free-response section of the exam, students will have a simple text editor to type their essays in. The Bluebook text editor comes with basic formatting tools that you can either select from a toolbar at the top of the text box or access via common keyboard shortcuts. Students should have access to scratch paper for making notes or planning their essays if they want it, but this paper will not be graded.
AP exams where the free-response section can require writing out mathematical expressions or drawing figures will be in a hybrid digital format for the 2025 exam. For these exams, students will take the multiple-choice section(s) fully in Bluebook. For the free-response section(s), the questions will be displayed in the Bluebook app, but students will write their responses in a paper exam booklet. There has been a significant overhaul of the AP Physics program this year, but otherwise these exams follow the same structure they have followed in the past.
The calculator policy is not changing for any of the 2025 AP Exams. In addition, students will have access to the Desmos graphing calculator built into Bluebook for any test section where calculators are allowed, with the exception of the AP Statistics exam. There are statistical computations required for the AP Stats exam that Desmos does not currently have the ability to perform, so students are still required to bring their own calculator for that test.
Desmos is a powerful tool and we would encourage students to at least try it out, but you are still welcome to bring your own approved calculator to the exam as well.
The AP Exams with listening components (the language and culture classes along with music theory) will still be given in their traditional formats for 2025. For AP classes where students submit an art or research portfolio, students will continue to submit their work through the AP Digital Portfolio (which is separate from Bluebook).
If you have been approved for accommodations for previous College Board exams (the PSAT, SAT, and APs), you should still have approval for those accommodations now. There are also a variety of accessibility tools built into Bluebook that all students have access to. If you are hoping for an accommodation that you have not already had approved, the deadline for submitting accommodation requests for the 2025 AP Exams is January 24, 2025.
It is possible to apply for an accommodation to take a paper form of a digital exam, but College Board has not made it clear under what circumstances this would be approved.
Last spring there were 8 AP tests that schools had the option of offering digitally: AP Computer Science Principles, AP English Language and Composition, AP English Literature and Composition, AP European History, AP US History, AP World History: Modern, and AP African American Studies. Each of these 8 tests currently has a preview available in the Bluebook app, with a short multiple-choice section and a few sample free-response questions. We anticipate that College Board will likely add previews for other tests that will be either fully or hybrid digital later this school year as we get closer to the exam dates.
