July is when College Board annually releases scores from its AP subject exams. Exams are scored on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the top score achievable. A score of 3 or above is considered a passing score on these college-level courses. Schools may give college credit or consider these to satisfy some graduation requirements and students use AP scores to demonstrate high academic achievement, which has led to the widespread popularity of these exams.
Each AP exam is curved on its own scale, so College Board releases its score distributions every year. This year, the highest percentages of test-takers scored a 5 on the AP Chinese Language and Culture (51%) and AP Calculus BC (44%) exams, while the lowest percentages belonged to AP 3D Art & Design (7%) and AP Spanish Language & Culture (8%). Compared with last year's results, the newly-revised AP Physics C Electricity & Magnetism moved downward the most, with only 23% earning a score of 5 compared with 35% in 2024. The restructured AP Psychology exam also showed a curve that was shifted down by several percentage points compared with last year. And despite some significant changes, the distribution for AP Chemistry remained stable when compared with last year.