​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The exam

A program developed by the College Board to provide rigorous academic courses which are offered at high schools, Advanced Placement courses are offered at 40 Hawaii high schools in subjects ranging from Calculus to English Language and Composition, Biology, U.S. History, Studio Art and 20 other subjects. Students may receive college credit if they receive a score of 3 or higher on the AP exam taken in May. Students may take an AP exam without enrolling in an AP course.

Each of the exams has its own unique requirements; however, almost all of the exams have several things in common:

• Most exams are two to three hours long. Be prepared to tackle a challenging exam with limited breaks. Eat a good breakfast and, if you are taking more than one exam on the same day, make sure you have lunch and snacks to keep you going.
• The first part of the exam usually consists of multiple-choice questions. You will choose one of four or five answer choices for each question and use a pencil to bubble in your choice on your AP answer sheet. Your total exam score on the multiple-choice section is based only on the number of questions answered correctly. You won’t receive or lose points for incorrect answers or unanswered questions.
• The second part of the exam usually consists of free-response questions that require you to generate your own responses. Depending on the exam, your responses could be in the form of an essay, a solution to a problem, a spoken response and more. In most cases, you’ll be writing your response in pen in the free-response exam booklet.

Fast facts about AP Exams:

• In the last decade, the number of U.S. public high school graduates who took at least one AP Exam increased from 691,437 or 23.9% of the class of 2007 to 1,174,554 or 37.7% of the class of 2017.
  
• In the HIDOE class of 2023, there were 9,053 AP exams taken, which is an 8.1% increase over the prior year, and 4,832 AP exams received a passing score of 3 or higher. This is a 5.3% increase over the prior year.
• AP Exam fee is $98 per exam. The College Board provides a $36 fee reduction per exam for students with financial need. A state subsidy of $45 will be given to each AP exam taken at a Title I or CEP school and for each low-income AP exam at all other HIDOE schools. For each AP Exam taken with a fee reduction, the school forgoes its $9 rebate, resulting in a cost of $8 per exam for low-income students.  
• More than 3,800 colleges and universities annually receive AP Exam scores. Most four-year colleges in the United States provide credit and/or advanced placement for qualifying scores.

Advanced Placement participation

Thanks in part to the Department's Advanced Placement Incentive Program launched in September 2011 — which expanded AP course offerings and AP test preparation and participation in public high schools — our AP test-taking rate and passing rate has increased significantly.