The new AP Statistics course, unit by unit

College Board redesigned AP Statistics for the 2026-27 school year: the old nine units became five, and the exam moves fully digital in the Bluebook app with the first new exam in May 2027. Everything on this page comes from the official course and exam description (CED), effective Fall 2026.

The full exam format: sections, timing, the four free-response questions, and what each unit is worth

The course is equivalent to a one-semester, introductory, non-calculus-based college statistics course. The only prerequisite is a first-year algebra course. On the May 2025 exam, 60.3% of students scored 3 or higher (mean score 2.92).

The five units

  1. 1Exploring One-Variable Data and Collecting Data13 topics · ~26 class periods20-30%
  2. 2Probability, Random Variables, and Probability Distributions12 topics · ~24 class periods15-25%
  3. 3Inference for Categorical Data: Proportions15 topics · ~30 class periods15-25%
  4. 4Inference for Quantitative Data: Means10 topics · ~18 class periods10-20%
  5. 5Regression Analysis5 topics · ~9 class periods10-20%

Exam format (May 2027 onward)

The exam is 3 hours long and fully digital in Bluebook. A graphing calculator with statistical capabilities is expected for both sections, and the official formula sheet and tables are provided (see our annotated version at /formulas).

SectionQuestionsTimeWeight
Section I: Multiple-choice4290 minutes50%
Section II: Free-response490 minutes50%

The four free-response questions are fixed types, 10 points each:

  • Question 1: Multi-Focus on Practices 1 and 2 (12.5% of the exam)
  • Question 2: Multi-Focus on Practices 3 and 4 (12.5% of the exam)
  • Question 3: Inference (Hypothesis Test or Confidence Interval) (12.5% of the exam)
  • Question 4: Multi-Focus on Practices 2, 3, and 4 (12.5% of the exam)

For how to answer them, see the FRQ writing guide.

What changed from the old course

Compared with the previous nine-unit course, these topics no longer appear on the AP exam (they remain standard in college intro statistics, and our guides cover them with an honest label): the chi-square goodness-of-fit test, the geometric distribution, inference for regression slopes, combining random variables, and analyzing departures from linearity. Chi-square tests for homogeneity and independence remain in Unit 3.

Official source: AP Statistics on AP Central.